As the fire spread, residents had to quickly ____ their homes.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The captain had to ____ the ship after it hit an iceberg.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English abandounen, from Old French abandoner, formed from a (“at, to”) + bandon (“jurisdiction, control”), from Late Latin bannum (“proclamation”), bannus, bandum, from Frankish *ban, *bann, from Proto-Germanic *bannaną (“to proclaim, command”) (whence English ban), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to speak”). See also ban, banal.
Displaced Middle English forleten (“to abandon”), from Old English forlǣtan, anforlǣtan; see forlet; and Middle English forleven (“to leave behind, abandon”), from Old English forlǣfan; see forleave.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"[…] he abandoned himself […] to his favourite vice."
— 1856, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II. Volume 3, page 312:
"In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […] The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra–wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised."
— 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19:
"Hope was overthrown, and yet could not be abandoned."
— 1832, Isaac Taylor, Saturday Evening, page 3:
"Being all this time abandoned from your bed."
— 1594, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, act I, scene ii:
"The Italian painters have an abandon in their chiar' oscuro which mellows up their flesh tints in a way that no other school can imitate : the frigidity of their outline is another remarkable feature, and the harmony of their impasto is unique."
— 1846, The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register, page 453: