Abort

//əˈbɔːt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An early termination of a mission, action, or procedure in relation to missiles or spacecraft; the craft making such a mission.

    "We've had aborts on three of our last seven launches."

  2. 2
    the act of terminating a project or procedure before it is completed wordnet
  3. 3
    The function used to abort a process.
  4. 4
    An event in which a process is aborted.

    "We've had three aborts over the last two days."

  5. 5
    The product of a miscarriage; an aborted offspring; an abortion. archaic
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  1. 6
    A miscarriage; an untimely birth; an abortion. obsolete

    "In Japonia 'tis a common thing to stifle their children if they be poor, or to make an abort, which Aristotle commends."

Verb
  1. 1
    To miscarry; to bring forth (non-living) offspring prematurely. intransitive, regional

    "Women have aborted, men have committed suicide, and both men and women have been thrown into convulsions during the fearful agony of renal colic."

  2. 2
    terminate a pregnancy by undergoing an abortion wordnet
  3. 3
    To cause a premature termination of (a fetus); to end a pregnancy before term. intransitive, transitive

    ""Of course, you can't abort yourself...I mean you positively can't be allowed to. To begin with it's a crime.""

  4. 4
    cease development, die, and be aborted wordnet
  5. 5
    To end prematurely; to stop in the preliminary stages; to turn back. transitive
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  1. 6
    terminate before completion wordnet
  2. 7
    To stop or fail at something in the preliminary stages. intransitive
  3. 8
    To become checked in normal development, so as either to remain rudimentary or shrink away wholly; to cease organic growth before maturation; to become sterile. intransitive
  4. 9
    To cause an organism to develop minimally; to cause rudimentary development to happen; to prevent maturation. transitive
  5. 10
    To abandon a mission at any point after the beginning of the mission and prior to its completion. intransitive

    "First he aborts the take-off and now we have a runway incursion!"

  6. 11
    To terminate a mission involving a missile or rocket; to destroy a missile or rocket prematurely. transitive
  7. 12
    To terminate a process prior to completion. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
abandonabortionabortusbelaycancelcease

Example

More examples

"I don't want to abort the mission now."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English, from Latin abortus, perfect active participle of aborior (“miscarry”), formed from ab + orior (“come into being”). Doublet of abortus.

Etymology 2

From Latin abortare, from abortus, from aboriri (“miscarry”), from ab- (“not”) + oriri (“come into being, arise, appear”).

Related phrases

pro-abort

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.