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ENGLISH SYNONYMES

EXPLAINED.

TO ABANDON, DESERT, FORSAKE, RELIN

QUISH.

THE idea of leaving or separating one's self from an object is common to these terms, which differ in the circumstances or modes of leaving. The two former are more solemn acts than the two latter.

ABANDON, from the French abandonner, is a concretion of the words donner à ban, to give up to a public ban or outlawry. To abandon then is to expose to every misfortune which results from a formal and public denunciation; to set out of the protection of law and government; and to deny the privileges of citizenship.

DESERT, in Latin desertus, participle of desero, that is, de privative and sero to sow, signifying unsown, unplanted, cultivated no longer. To desert then is to leave off cultivating; and as there is something of idleness and improvidence in ceasing to render the soil productive, ideas of disapprobation accompany the word in all its metaphorical applications. He who leaves off cultivating a farm usually removes from it; hence the idea of removal and blameworthy removal, which usually attaches to the term.

FORSAKE, in Saxon, forsecan, is com pounded of the primitive for and sake, seek, secan, signifying to seek no more, to leave off seeking that which has been an object of search.

RELINQUISH, in Latin relinquo, is compounded of re or retro behind and linquo to leave, that is, to leave what we would fain take with us, to leave with reluctance. To abandon is totally to withdraw ourselves from an object; to lay aside all care and concern for it; to leave it altogether to itself: to desert is to withdraw ourselves at certain times when our assistance or co

operation is required, or to separate ourselves from that to which we ought to be attached to for sake is to withdraw our regard for and interest in an object, to keep at a distance from it: to relinquish is to leave that which has once been an object of our pursuit.

Abandon and desert are employed for persons or things; forsake for persons or places; relinquish for things only.

With regard to persons these terms express moral culpability in a progressive ratio downward: abandon comprehends the violation of the most sacred ties; desert, a breach of honour and fidelity; forsake, a rupture of the social bond.

We abandon those who are entirely dependent upon us for protection and support; they are left in a helpless state exposed to every danger; a child is abandoned by its parent: we desert those with whom we have entered into coalition; they are left to their own resources; a soldier deserts his comrades; a partisan deserts his friends : we forsake those with whom we have been in habits of intimacy; they are deprived of the pleasures and comforts of society; a man forsakes his companions; a lover forsakes his mistress.

We are bound by every law human and divine not to abandon; we are called upon by every good principle not to desert; we are impelled by every kind feeling not to forsake.

Few animals except man will abandon their young until they are enabled to provide for themselves. Interest, which is but too often the only principle that brings men together, will lead them to desert each other in the time of difficulty. We are enjoined in the gospel not to forsake the poor and needy.

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With regard to things (in which sense the word relinquish is synonymous) the character of abandoning varies with the circumstances and motives of the action, according to which it is either good, bad, or indifferent; deserting is always taken in an unfavourable or bad sense; the act of forsaking is indifferent; that of relinquishing is prudent or imprudent.

A captain may abandon his vessel when he has no means of saving it, except at the risk of his life; but an upright statesman will never desert his post when his country is in danger, nor a true soldier desert his colours. Birds will mostly forsake their nests when they discover them to have been visited. Men often inadvertently relinquish the fairest prospects in order to follow some favourite scheme which terminates in their ruin.

No wise man will abandon his house when it is on fire. It is the common consequence of war that the peaceable and well-disposed are compelled to desert their houses and their homes. Animals that are pursued by the sportsman will forsake their haunts, when they find themselves much molested. It is sometimes better to relinquish our claims than to contend for them at the expense of our peace.

Having abandoned their all, they forsook the place which gave them birth, and relinquished the advantages which they might have obtained from their rank and family. -neglected Nature pines

Abandoned.

Cowper

He who at the approach of evil betrays his trust, or deserts his post, is branded with cowardice.

Hawkesworth.

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ABANDON.

ABANDON, 2. To abandon, desert. RESIGN, from re and signo, signifies to sign away or back from one's self.

RENOUNCE, in Latin renuncio, from nuncio to tell or declare, is to declare oft from a thing.

ABDICATE, from ab from, and dico to speak, signifies likewise to call or cry off from a thing.

We abandon and resign by giving up to another; we renounce by sending away from ourselves : we abandon a thing by transferring our power over to another; in this manner a debtor abandons his goods to his creditors: we resign a thing by transferring our possession of it to another; in this manner we resign a place to a friend = we renounce a thing by simply ceasing to hold it; in this manner we renounce a claim or a profession. As to renounce signified originally to give up by word of mouth, and to resign to give up by signature, the former is consequently a less formal action than the latter; we may renounce by implication; we resign in direct terms: we renounce the pleasures of the world when we do not seek to enjoy them; we resign a pleasure, a profit, or advantage, of which we expressly give up the enjoyment.

To abdicate is a species of informal resig nation. A monarch abdicates his throne who simply declares his will to crase to reign; but a minister resigns his office when he gives up the seals by which he held it.

A humane commander will not abandon a town to the rapine of his soldiers. The motives for resignations are various. Discontent, disgust, and the love of repose, are the ordinary inducements for men to resign honourable and lucrative employments. Men are not so ready to renounce the pleasures that are within their reach, as to seek for those which are out of their reach. The abdication of a throne is not always an act of magnanimity, it may frequently result from caprice or necessity.

Charles the Fifth abdicated his crown, and his minister resigned his office on the very same day, when both renounced the world with its allurements and its troubles.

The passive gods beheld the Greeks defile
Their temples, and abandon to the spoil
Their own abodes.

Dryden.

It would be a good appendix to "the art of living and dying," if any one would write "the art of growing old," and teach men to resign their pretensions to the pleasures of youth. Steele.

For ministers to be silent in the cause of Christ is to renounce it, and to fly is to desert it. South.

Much gratitude is due to the Nine from their favoured poets, and much hath been paid for even to the present hour they are invoked and worshipped by the sons of verse, whilst all the other deitics of Olympus have either abdicated their thrones, or been dis

missed from them with contempt.

Cumberland

ABASE.

We abandon nothing but that over which we have had an entire and lawful control; we abdicate nothing but that which we have held by a certain right; but we may resign or renounce that which may be in our possession only by an act of violence. A usurper cannot abandon his people, because he has no people over whom he can exert a lawful authority; still less can he abdicate a throne, because he has no throne to abdicate, but he may resign supreme power, because power may be unjustly held; or he may renounce his pretensions to a throne, because pretensions may be fallacious or extravagant.

Abandon and resign are likewise used in a reflective sense; the former to express an involuntary or culpable action, the latter that which is voluntary and proper. The soldiers of Hannibal abandoned themselves to effeminacy during their winter quarters at Capua.

It is the part of every good man's religion to resign himself to God's will. Cumberland.

TO ABANDON, v. To give up, abandon.

ABANDONED, v. Profligate.

TO ABASE, HUMBLE, DEGRADE, DISGRACE,

DEBASE.

To ABASE expresses the strongest degree of self-humiliation, from the French abaisser, to bring down or make low, which is compounded of the intensive syllable a or ad and baisser from bas low, in Latin basis the base, which is the lowest part of a column. It is at present used principally in the Scripture language, or in a metaphorical style, to imply the laying aside all the high pretensions which distinguish us from our fellow-creatures, the descending to a state comparatively low and mean.

To HUMBLE, in French humilier, from the Latin humilis humble, and humus the ground, naturally marks a prostration to the ground, and figuratively a lowering the thoughts and feelings.

According to the principles of Christianity whoever abaseth himself shall be exalted, and according to the same principles whoever reflects on his own littleness and unworthiness will daily humble himself before his Maker.

To DEGRADE, in French degrader, from the Latin gradus a step, signifies to bring a step lower; figuratively, to lower in the estimation of others. It supposes already a state of elevation either in outward circumstances or in public opinion.

DISGRACE is compounded of the privative dis and the noun grace or favour. To disgrace properly implies to put out of favour, which is always attended more or less with circumstances of ignominy, and reflects contempt on the object.

ABASH.

DEBASE is compounded of the inten sive syllable de and the adjective base, signifying to make very base or low.

The modest man abases himself by not insisting on the distinctions to which he may be justly entitled; the penitent man humbles himself by confessing his errors; the man of rank degrades himself by a too familiar deportment with his inferiors; he disgraces himself by his meannesses and irregularities, and debases his character by his vices.

We can never be abased by abasing ourselves, but we may be humbled by unseasonable humiliations, or improper concessions; we may be degraded by descending from our rank, and disgraced by the exposure of our unworthy actions.

The great and good man may be abused and humbled, but never degraded or disgraced his glory follows him in his abasement or humiliation; his greatness protects him from degradation, and his virtue shields him from disgrace.

It is necessary to abase those who will exalt themselves; to humble those who have lofty opinions of themselves; to degrade those who act inconsistently with their rank and station; to disgrace those who are debased by vice and profligacy. "Tis immortality, 'tis that alone Amidst life's pains, abasements, emptiness, The soul can comfort.

My soul is justly humbled in the dust.

Young.

Rowe.

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TO ABASH, CONFOUND, CONFuse. ABASH is an intensive of abase, signifying to abase thoroughly in spirit.

CONFOUND and CONFUSE are derived from different parts of the same Latin verb confundo and its participle confusus. Confundo is compounded of con and fundo to pour together. To confound and confuse then signify properly to melt together or into one mass what ought to be distinct; and figuratively, as it is here taken, to derange the thoughts in such manner as that they seem melted together.

Abash expresses more than confound, and confound more than confuse.

Shame contributes greatly to abashment; what is sudden and unaccountable serves to confound; bashfulness and a variety of emotions give rise to confusion.

The haughty man is abashed when he is bumbled in the eyes of others; the wicked man is confounded when his villany is sud

ABATE.

denly detected; a modest person may be confused in the presence of his superiors.

Abash is always taken in a bad sense: neither the scorn of fools, nor the taunts of the oppressor, will abash him who has a conscience void of offence towards God and man. To be confounded is not always the consequence of guilt: superstition and ignorance are liable to be confounded by extraordinary phenomena; and Providence sometimes thinks fit to confound the wisdom of the wisest by signs and wonders, far above the reach of human comprehension. Confusion is at the best an infirmity more or less excusable according to the nature of the cause: a steady mind and a clear head are not easily confused, but persons of quick sensibility cannot always preserve a perfect collection of thought in trying situations, and those who have any consciousness of guilt, and are not very hardened, will be soon thrown into confusion by close interrogatorics.

If Peter was so abashed when Christ gave him a look after his denial. If there was so much dread in his looks when he was a prisoner; how much greater will it be when he sits as a judge?

South.

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The various evils of disease and poverty, pain and sorrow, are frequently derived from others; but shame and confusion are supposed to proceed from ourselves, and to be incurred only by the misconduct Hawkesworth. which they furnish.

TO ABATE, LESSEN, DIMINISH, DECREASE. ABATE, from the French abuttre, signified originally to beat down, in the active sense; to come down, in the neuter sense.

DIMINISH, or, as it is sometimes written, minish, from the Latin diminuo, and minuo to lessen, and minus less, expresses, like the verb LESSEN, the sense of either making less or becoming less.

DECREASE is compounded of the privative de and crease, in Latin cresco, to grow, signifying to grow less.

The first three are used transitively or intransitively; the latter only intransitively.

Abate respects the vigour of action: a person's fever is abated or abates; the violence of the storm abates; pain and anger abate.

Lessen and diminish are both applied to size, quantity, and number; but the former mostly in the proper and familiar sense, the latter in the figurative and higher acceptation: the size of a room or garden is lessened; the credit and respectability of a person is diminished.

Nothing is so calculated to abate the ardour of youth as grief and disappointment; an evil may be lessened when it cannot be removed by the application of remedies;

ABDICATE.

nothing diminishes the lustre of great deeds more than cruelty.

The passion of an angry man ought to be allowed to abate before any appeal is made to his understanding; we may lessen the number of our evils by not dwelling upon them.

Objects apparently diminish according to the distance from which they are observed.

To decrease is to diminish for a continuance a retreating army will decrease rapidly when exposed to all the privations and hardships attendant on forced marches, it is compelled to fight for its safety: some things decrease so gradually that it is some time before they are observed to be diminished.

In the abstract sense the word lessening is mostly supplied by diminution: it will be no abatement of sorrow to a generous mind to know that the diminution of evil to itself has been produced by the abridgment of good to another.

My wonder abated, when upon looking around me I saw most of them attentive to three Sirens clothed like goddesses, and distinguished by the names of Addison. Sloth, Ignorance, and Pleasure. Tully was the first who observed that friendship Addison. improves happiness and abates misery. He sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil; The pleasure lessened the attending toil.

Addison.

If Parthenissa can now possess her own mind, and think as little of her beauty, as she ought to have done when she had it, there will be no great diminution of her charms. Hughes.

These leaks shall then decrease; the sails once more
Direct our course to some relieving shore. Falconer.
TO ABATE, v. To subside.
ABBREVIATION, v. Contraction.
TO ABDICATE, v. To abandon.

TO ABDICATE, Desert. THE following celebrated speech of Lord Somers, in 1688, on King James's vacating the throne, may be admitted as a happy elucidation of these two important words; but I am not inclined to think that they come sufficiently close in signification to render any comparison necessary.

"What is appointed me to speak to is your Lordships' first amendment by which the word abdicated in the Commons' vote is changed into the word deserted, and I am to acquaint your Lordships what some of the grounds are that induced the Commons to insist on the word abdicated, and not to agree to your amendment.

"The first reason your Lordships are pleased to deliver for your changing the word is, that the word abdicated your Lordships do not find is a word known to the common law of England, and therefore ought not to be used. The next is that the common application of the word amounts to a voluntary express renunciation, which is not in this case, nor will follow from the premises.

ABDICATE.

"My Lords, as to the first of these reasons, if it be an objection that the word abdicated hath not a known sense in the common law of England, there is the same objection against the word deserted; so that your Lordships' first reason hath the same force against your own amendment, as against the term used by the Commons. "The words are both Latin words, and used in the best authors, and both of a known signification; their meaning is very well understood, though it be true their meaning is not the same. The word abdicate doth naturally and properly signify, en tirely to renounce, throw off, disown, relinquish any thing or person, so as to have no further to do with it; and that whether it be done by express words or in writing (which is the sense your Lordships put upon it, and which is properly called resignation or cession,) or by doing such acts as are inconsistent with the holding and retaining of the thing, which the Commons take to be the present case, and therefore make choice of the word abdicate, as that which they thought did above all others express that meaning. And in this latter sense it is taken by others; and that this is the true signification of the word I shall show your Lordships out of the best authors.

"The first I shall mention is Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, 1. 2, c. 4, § 4. Venit enim hoc non ex jure civili, sed ex jure naturali, quo quisque suum potest abdicare, et ex naturali præsumptione quâ voluisse quis creditur quod sufficienter significavit. And then he goes on: Recusari hæreditas, non tantum verbis sed etiam re, potest, et quovis indicio voluntatis.

"Another instance which I shall mention, to show that for abdicating a thing it is sufficient to do an act which is inconsistent with retaining it, though there be nothing of express renunciation, is out of Calvin's Lexicon Juridicum, where he says, Generum abdicat qui sponsam repudiat. Here is an abdication without express words, but it is by doing such an act as doth sufciently signify his purpose.

"The next author I shall quote is Brissonius, De Verborum Significatione, who hath this passage: Homo liber qui seipsum vendit abdicat se statu suo. That is, he who sells himself hath thereby done such an act as cannot consist with his former state of freedom, and is thereby said properly se abdicasse statu suo.

Budæus, in his Commentaries De Origine Juris ad Legem Secundam, expounds the words in the same sense. Abdicare se magistratu est idem quod abire penitus magistratu. He that goes out of his office of magistracy, let it be in what manner he will, has abdicated the magistracy.

"And Grotius, in his book De Jure Belli

ABDICATE.

et Pacis, l. 1, c. 4, § 9, seems to expound the word abdicare by manifeste habere pro derelicto; that is, he who hath abdicated any thing hath so far relinquished it, that he hath no right of return to it. And that is the sense the Commons put upon the word. It is an entire alienation of the thing abdicated, and so stands in opposition to dicare. Dicat qui proprium aliquot faciat, abdicat qui alienat; so says Praiejus in his Lexicon Juris. It is therefore insisted on as the proper word by the Commons.

"But the word deserted (which is the word used in the amendment made by your Lordships) hath not only a very doubtful signification, but in the common acceptance both of the civil and canon law, doth signify only a bare withdrawing, a temporary quitting of a thing, and neglect only, which leaveth the party at liberty of returning to it again. Desertum pro neglecto, says Spigelius in his Lexicon. But the difference between deserere and derelinquere is expressly laid down by Bartolus on the 8th law of the 58th title of the 11th book of the Code, and his words are these: Nota diligenter ex hac lege, quod aliud est agrum deserere, aliud derelinquere; qui enim derelinquit ipsum ex pœnitentiâ non revocare, sed qui deserit, intra biennium potest.

"Whereby it appears, my Lords, that is called desertion which is temporary and relievable; that is called dereliction, where there is no power or right to return.

"So in the best Latin authors, and in the civil law, deserere exercitum is used to signify soldiers leaving their colours; and in the canon law to desert a benefice signifies no more than to be a nonresident.

"In both cases the party hath not only a right of returning, but is bound toreturn again; which, my Lords, as the Commons do not take to be the present case, so they cannot think that your Lordships do, because it is expressly said, in one of your reasons given in defence of the last amendment, that your Lordships have been and are willing to secure the nation against the return of King James, which your Lordships would not in justice do, if you did look upon it to be no more than a negligent withdrawing, which leaveth a liberty to the party to return.

"For which reasons, my Lords, the Commons cannot agree to the first amendment, to insert the word deserted instead of abdicated; because it doth not in any sort come up to their sense of the thing, so they apprehend it doth not reach your Lordships' meaning as it is expressed in your reasons, whereas they look upon the word abdicated to express properly what is to be inferred from that part of the vote to which your Lordships have agreed, viz, "That King

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