abandonment
(əˈbændənmənt)
[a. Fr. abandonnement, f. abandonner to abandon: see -ment.]
The action or process of abandoning; the condition of being abandoned.
1. The action of relinquishing to another, of giving up, letting go, forsaking.
| 1611 Cotgr., Abandon The quitting, abandonment, or prostitution of a thing vnto others. 1788 Burke Sp. agt. Hastings Wks. XIII. 468 Mr. Hastings's abandonment of all his own pretences. 1818 Byron Ch. Har. iv. cxxvii 'Tis a base Abandonment of reason to resign Our right of thought. 1856 Kane Arctic Explor. II. xvii. 179 I regard the abandonment of the brig as inevitable. |
2. Comm. Law. The relinquishment of an interest or claim; esp. in Marine Insurance.
| 1809 Tomlins Law Dict. Insurance ii. 7 Abandonment is as ancient as the Contract of Insurance itself. 1848 Arnould Law of Mar. Ins. (1866) II. iii. vi. 852 Abandonment therefore is the act of cession, by which..the assured, on condition of receiving at once the whole amount of the insurance, relinquishes to the underwriters all his property and interest in the thing insured. |
3. Self-abandonment; the surrender of oneself to an influence, of one's presence of mind, pretensions, etc.
| 1860 R. A. Vaughan Ho. w. Mystics (ed. 2) I. 153 Then understood this Master that true Abandonment, with utter Abasement, was the nearest way to God. 1870 Emerson Soc. & Solit. iv. 69 Where heats and panics and abandonments are quite out of the system. |
4. The condition of being abandoned.
| 1839 De Quincey Recoll. Lakes Wks. 1862 II. 1 Fortitude which could face an occasion of sudden mysterious abandonment. |
5. Freedom from restraint of manner, careless freedom, abandon.
| 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. 87 (1858) Gaily in light, graceful abandonment, the friendly talk played round that circle. 1842 Mrs. Browning Grk. Chr. Poets 158 (1863) The elasticity and abandonment of Shakespeare. 1844 Disraeli Coningsby iii. i. 88 His manner was frank even to abandonment. |