abort
Noun · VerbOpen English WordNet
Noun (1)
- the act of terminating a project or procedure before it is completed“I wasted a year of my life working on an abort”“he sent a short message requesting an abort due to extreme winds in the area”Type of termination, ending
Verb (3)aborted, aborting
- terminate before completion“abort the mission”“abort the process running on my computer”More general end, terminate
- cease development, die, and be aborted“an aborting fetus”More general die, decease
- terminate a pregnancy by undergoing an abortionMore general exhaust, dischargeMore specific miscarryInvolves conceive
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: L. abortare, fr. abortus, p. p. of aboriri; ab + oriri to rise, to be born. See Orient.
1. To miscarry; to bring forth young prematurely.
2. Biology To become checked in normal development, so as either to remain rudimentary or shrink away wholly; to become sterile.
3. to stop, cease, or fail prior to normal completion.
to cause (an action or process) to stop at an early stage, or before normal completion; as, to abort a rocket flight.
Origin: L. abortus, fr. aboriri.
1. An untimely birth. obsolete Sir Henry Wotton
2. An aborted offspring. obsolete Philemon Holland
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: GCIDE editors
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
<programming> To terminate a program or process abnormally and usually suddenly, with or without diagnostic information. "My program aborted", "I aborted the transmission". The noun form in computing is "abort", not "abortion", e.g. "We've had three aborts over the last two days".
If a Unix kernel aborts it is known as a panic.
(1997-01-07)