abort

Noun

abort (plural aborts)

1. (obsolete) A miscarriage; an untimely birth; an abortion. [Attested from around (1350 to 1470) until the mid 17^th century.]
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):
     , I.2.4.vi:

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

2. (now rare) The product of a miscarriage; an aborted offspring; an abortion. [First attested in the early 17^th century.]
3. (military, aeronautics) 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.

4. (computing) The function used to abort a process.
5. (computing) An event involving the abort of a process.

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

Verb

abort (third-person singular simple present aborts, present participle aborting, simple past and past participle aborted)

1. (intransitive, now rare outside medicine) To miscarry; to bring forth (non-living) offspring prematurely. [First attested in the mid 16^th century.]
   • 1785, Henry Morris, Surgical Diseases of the Kidney, page 458:

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

   • 1983, M. D. Bennett, Chromosomes Today: Volume 8 Proceedings of the Eighth International Chromosome Conference, page 346:

     In the study group ll patients aborted spontaneously between the 17th and 20th gestational week and 8 patients aborted after the 21st week.

2. (transitive, intransitive) To cause a premature termination of (a fetus); to end a pregnancy before term. [Attested since at least the 19^th century.]
3. (transitive) To end prematurely; to stop in the preliminary stages; to turn back. [First attested in the late 16^th century.]
4. (intransitive) To stop or fail at something in the preliminary stages. [First attested in the late 16^th century.]
5. (intransitive, biology) 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. [First attested in the mid 19^th century.]
6. (transitive, biology) To cause an organism to develop minimally; to cause rudimentary development to happen; to prevent maturation. [First attested in the mid 19^th century.]
7. (intransitive, military) To abandon a mission at any point after the beginning of the mission and prior to its completion. [First attested in the mid 20^th century.]
8. (transitive, aeronautics) To terminate a mission involving a missile or rocket; to destroy a missile or rocket prematurely. [First attested in the mid 20^th century.]
9. (transitive, computing) To terminate a process prior to completion.

References

• abort in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms
• “abort” in "Systems and software engineering—vocabulary", ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765:2010(E), 15 December 2010, →ISBN, DOI 10.1109/IEEESTD.2010.5733835

Declension

Inflection

Derived terms

• spontan abort, spontanabort

Derived terms

• spontan abort, spontanabort

Synonyms

• abortamento

Declension

Related terms

• abortera
• abortiv
• abortmedel
• få abort
• göra abort