abandons
- 1Third-person singular present of abandon.
Each spring the colony abandons its old nesting grounds for richer feeding sites.
He abandons one hobby for another every few months.
Note
The present form that always wants an object, because every meaning of the verb is transitive. A colony abandons its nesting grounds, a crew abandons a ship, a claimant abandons a right. The 'give oneself over' meaning makes it reflexive: she abandons herself to grief. Only he, she, it or a singular noun takes this form. The same spelling also serves as the noun's plural.
- 2Plural of abandon. Rare, since the noun is almost always uncountable.
Note
A plural that counts what is usually left uncounted. Abandon, meaning release from restraint, mostly appears as a mass noun, above all in the fixed phrase with abandon. Abandons turns it into separate episodes, such as bursts of wild movement or stolen hours of leisure. The same spelling is also the verb's present form. A determiner settles which one you are reading: these abandons can only be the noun.
- 3Women who work as prostitutes.
The magistrate ordered the abandons cleared from the quarter near the docks.
By midnight the abandons gathered under the lamps along the narrow lane.
Note
It shares its register with the 'foundlings' meaning: archaic British slang, used only in the plural. Here the word labels women rather than describing an act, and slang labels of that kind rarely stay neutral, so quote it rather than adopt it. When an older passage could mean either archaic sense, the setting usually decides. Lamplit lanes, docks and magistrates belong to this one.
Less common meaning
- 4Children abandoned by their parents; foundlings.
The charity school clothed and fed dozens of abandons each year.
Among the abandons left at the gate that night was a boy of barely two.
Note
A word with no singular: for one such child, foundling does the work, never an abandon. It is archaic British slang, so it belongs to reading older texts rather than to modern writing, where abandoned children is the plain choice. Because the spelling is shared with the plural of 'abandon' as release, let the surroundings decide. A gate, a charity or an orphan's bundle points here, not to wild abandon.
Showing meanings only.
abandons is a form of abandon
abandon, verb: To leave a ship, place, position, or person behind for good, often in the face of danger, sometimes in breach of a duty or responsibility. Full entry
- Forms
- abandonabandons he/she/itabandoning -ing formabandoned past tense, past participle
- Spelling
- abandon → abandons: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with abandons, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.