1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. abject

Find the word definition

What is "abject"

Crossword clues for abject

abject
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
abject
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
abject misery (=extreme unhappiness)
▪ The news plunged him into abject misery.
abject/dismal failure (=used to emphasize how bad a failure is)
▪ The experiment was considered a dismal failure.
abject/grinding/dire poverty (=extremely severe)
▪ He was shocked by the abject poverty that he saw.
an abject apologyformal (= one that shows that you are very sorry)
▪ The BBC issued an abject apology for insulting the Queen.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
failure
▪ Its strategy was an abject failure on its own terms, for the Gaullists romped home in the June elections.
▪ A central reason cited for the cutback was the abject failure of highly touted sports movies.
▪ Its credibility has been severely damaged and its attempts to find a solution to the problem have resulted in abject failure.
▪ The expedition was over, an abject failure.
▪ On an emotional day like October 19, he could have made the difference between success and abject failure.
▪ All his attempts to organize street parties, coach outings and singalongs in the local pubs ended in abject failure.
misery
▪ But for some, who didn't get the grades they hoped for, there's abject misery.
▪ For the first three years he endured abject misery.
poverty
▪ Many such families are living in abject poverty at home or as refugees abroad, cut off from family and friends.
▪ The parasite has been nurtured by abject poverty, intermittent political chaos and, some charge, international indifference.
▪ Wealth was much more frequent than abject poverty.
▪ In a continent where economic successes are rare, authoritarianism may seem a lesser evil than abject poverty.
▪ The Sisters also try never to reject anyone in abject poverty, the hungry or starving.
▪ However, many people are living in abject poverty because of the poll tax.
▪ He was born in abject poverty with a family history of madness, yet grew up to take the world by storm.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A central reason cited for the cutback was the abject failure of highly touted sports movies.
▪ Ice-cold, shocked, her stomach a tight knot of abject terror, Polly gazed wildly around her.
▪ In July 1583 he escaped to St Andrews, and set about destroying his tormentors or pardoning some in return for abject submission.
▪ In this situation, abject apologies in some respects remain complicit with the patronizing attitudes from which they attempt to disassociate themselves.
▪ The parasite has been nurtured by abject poverty, intermittent political chaos and, some charge, international indifference.
▪ Wealth was much more frequent than abject poverty.
▪ What these hopefuls achieved for their pleasure and pain was a violent lifestyle of abject poverty.
▪ When Margarett fell into abject depression days later, Shaw was prepared.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
abject

abject \ab"ject\ ([a^]b"j[e^]kt), a. [L. abjectus, p. p. of abjicere to throw away; ab + jacere to throw. See Jet a shooting forth.]

  1. Cast down; low-lying. [Obs.]

    From the safe shore their floating carcasses And broken chariot wheels; so thick bestrown Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood.
    --Milton.

  2. Degraded; servile; groveling; despicable; as, abject posture, fortune, thoughts. ``Base and abject flatterers.''
    --Addison. ``An abject liar.''
    --Macaulay.

    And banish hence these abject, lowly dreams.
    --Shak.

  3. Sunk to a low condition; down in spirit or hope; miserable; -- of persons.

  4. Humiliating; degrading; wretched; -- of situations; as, abject poverty.

    Syn: Mean; groveling; cringing; mean-spirited; slavish; ignoble; worthless; vile; beggarly; contemptible; degraded.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
abject

early 15c., "cast off, rejected," from Latin abiectus, past participle of abicere "to throw away, cast off; degrade, humble, lower," from ab- "away, off" (see ab-) + iacere "to throw" (past participle iactus; see jet (v.)). Figurative sense of "downcast, brought low" first attested 1510s. Related: Abjectly; abjectness.

Wiktionary
abject

Etymology 1

  1. 1 (context obsolete English) Rejected; cast aside. (Attested from around (1350 to 1470) until the early 17th century.)(R:SOED5: page=5) 2 Sunk to or existing in a low condition, state, or position. (First attested from around (1350 to 1470).) 3 Cast down in spirit or hope; degraded; servile; grovelling; despicable; lacking courage; offered in a humble and often ingratiating spirit. (First attested from around (1350 to 1470).) 4 Showing utter hopelessness; helplessness; showing resignation; wretched. (First attested from around (1350 to 1470).) n. A person in the lowest and most despicable condition; a castaway; outcast. (First attested from the late 15th century.) Etymology 2

    v

  2. 1 (context transitive obsolete English) To cast off or out; to reject. (Attested from around (1350 to 1470) until the late 17th century.) 2 (context transitive obsolete English) To cast down; hence, to abase; to degrade; to lower; to debase. (Attested from around (1350 to 1470) until the late 17th century.)

WordNet
abject

  1. adj. of the most contemptible kind; "abject cowardice"; "a low stunt to pull"; "a low-down sneak"; "his miserable treatment of his family"; "You miserable skunk!"; "a scummy rabble"; "a scurvy trick" [syn: low, low-down, miserable, scummy, scurvy]

  2. most unfortunate or miserable; "the most abject slaves joined in the revolt"; "abject poverty"

  3. showing utter resignation or hopelessness; "abject surrender" [syn: resigned, unhopeful]

  4. showing humiliation or submissiveness; "an abject apology"

Usage examples of "abject".

Between his wrath at the suspicion of an injury, and the prudence enjoined by his abject coveting of her, he consented to be fooled for the sake of vengeance, and something besides.

This multitude of abject dependants was interested in the support of the actual government from the dread of a revolution, which might at once confound their hopes and intercept the reward of their services.

Lady Christina de Dulcin turned her eyes from Mitch to Johann Karlsen, and screamed in abject terror.

Shrieking in panic, they scattered in every direction, shoving past Gell and the stunned brutes as they fled in abject terror.

While people are worrying about things like the fact that a deli is overcharging some people by five cents for gingko biloba rings, there are human beings walking around our school in abject misery because no one will even say Good morning to them, or How was your weekend?

We talked for some time, and at last he told me the state of abject poverty to which he was reduced, and the great difficulty he had to keep his numerous family.

There was a look of abject terror on the face of Prince Hamal, and Kalachka shuffled back to his original position.

Mumbled words for salvation to the good Lordy were ejected from his parched lips that were repeated in desperation and abject misery.

While they were in the condition of abject poverty, in the lowest degree of abasement, ignorance and servility His Holiness Moses suddenly appeared among them.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the second capital of the West was represented by a mosch, a college without students, twenty-five or thirty shops, and the huts of five hundred peasants, who, in their abject poverty, displayed the arrogance of the Punic senators.

I offer my inexpressibly abject apologies to Myr Cory and her guests for having presented such a questionable gift.

He not only added to his riches by the most abject niggardliness in his mode of life, thereby adding his pension to his capital, but by speculation in Saxon bonds, for which, in the beginning, he employed the aid of the Jew Hirsch.

He saw the duo strain, exerting their enormous strength, and he saw Milly Odum shriek in abject fear, and then her arms parted from her shoulders with a sickening ripping sound, tendrils of flesh hanging from the ragged sockets, blood spurting from each cavity.

The Piache went toward the door of a carefully closed hut, and crawling up to it on all-fours in most abject fashion, began whining to some one within.

Far rather would they make the most abject surrenders to the Kaiser than deal with a renascent Republican Germany.