What is "abortive"

Usage examples of "abortive".

Mr Topper, seizing the fallen man by the arnd and dragging him ruthlessly over the matting in an abortive effort to help him to his feet.

Along the way he filled Carde in on his abortive conversation with Boget about theism.

In the meantime, we cannot resist the temptation of gracing our conclusion with the following beautiful passage, in which the author alludes to the hopes that were raised at another great era of partial concession and liberality, that of the revolution of 1782, when, also, benefits were conferred which proved abortive because they were incomplete, and balm poured into the wound, where the envenomed shaft was yet left to rankle.

Sometimes they worked out together in the shabby little gym in Bloomsbury run by a Hungarian expatriate who had fled his own country after the abortive rising.

The NSA recorders whirred as the Egyptians launched an abortive air attack on an advancing Israeli armored brigade in the northern Sinai, only to have their planes shot out of the air by Israeli delta-wing Mirage aircraft.

Fully half of the males of the Marag race died during that abortive invasion.

I made one abortive attempt to pick up the tab, but Moise waved that aside, telling me it was handled on a direct-billing basis.

Prince of Scotland and myself in the desert, reducing us to save our lives by the speed of our horses--not that he had stirred up the Maronites to attack us upon this very occasion, had I not brought up unexpectedly so many Arabs as rendered the scheme abortive-- not for any or all of these crimes does he now lie there, although each were deserving such a doom--but because, scarce half an hour ere he polluted our presence, as the simoom empoisons the atmosphere, he poniarded his comrade and accomplice, Conrade of Montserrat, lest he should confess the infamous plots in which they had both been engaged.

Beth, for her part, had found the park where she had taken her abortive walk with Twindle to be delightful, and recommended that her sisters explore it without delay.

Signor Mantissa himself had been through them all, each booth was a permanent exhibit in memory of some time in his life when there had been a blond seamstress in Lyons, or an abortive plot to smuggle tobacco over the Pyrenees, or a minor assassination attempt in Belgrade.

Mr Perse declined to accept responsibility for describing what had happened to the abortive and disgraceful Second Crusade.

Lieutenant Uhura had reperformed every check of her equipment known to Starfleet and a number that she had devised on the spot, and yet no response had come from either Starfleet Headquarters or any Federation starship since that one abortive communication from Admiral Brady.

Indeed, the prematurely old and abortive house had its best counterpart in the young man himself, who stole into one of its small, unplastered rooms with many a wary glance, as though it were a treasure-vault which he was bent on plundering.

Louis confidence man named Victor Strasser who at age twenty-three floated some Missouri money to buy oil rights, at age twenty-four fled Mexico after an abortive attempt to invade Sonora, and at age twenty-five arrived in Boca Grande.

In a sense it helped to alleviate some of the depression and frustration she had been experiencing since her abortive attempt to talk to Jim before she had left England.