Abandon vs Fail - What's the difference?
abandon | fail | Related terms |
(obsolete) To subdue; to take control of.
To give up control of, to surrender or to give oneself over, or to yield to one's emotions.
* Macaulay
To desist in doing, practicing, following, holding, or adhering to; to turn away from; to permit to lapse; to renounce; to discontinue.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-17
, author=George Monbiot, authorlink=George Monbiot
, title=Money just makes the rich suffer
, volume=188, issue=23, page=19
, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/06/politics-envy-keenest-rich
, passage=In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured.
To leave behind; to desert as in a ship or a position, typically in response to overwhelming odds or impending dangers; to forsake, in spite of a duty or responsibility.
* (rfdate) I. Taylor:
(obsolete) To cast out; to banish; to expel; to reject.
* 1594 , , The Taming of the Shrew , act I, scene ii:
* Udall
To no longer exercise a right, title, or interest, especially with no interest of reclaiming it again; to yield; to relinquish.
To surrender to the insurer the insured item, so as to claim a total loss.
A yielding to natural impulses or inhibitions; freedom from artificial constraint, with loss of appreciation of consequences. .
* 1954 , , Messiah :
* 2007 , Akiva Goldsman and Mark Protosevich, :
(obsolete) abandonment; relinquishment.
(obsolete, not comparable) Freely; entirely.
* 1330 , Arthour and Merlin :
(label) To be unsuccessful.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (label) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)
(label) To neglect.
To cease to operate correctly.
(label) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert.
* Bible, 1 Kings ii. 4
* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 3, ch. II, ''Gospel of Mammonism
*
, title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 (label) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.
(label) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.
To miss attaining; to lose.
* Milton
To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
* Bible, Job xiv. 11
* Shakespeare
(archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of .
* Berke
(archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
* Milton
(archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
(obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
* Milton
To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.
(uncountable) (label) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
(label) A failure (condition of being unsuccessful)
A failure (something incapable of success)
A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).
A failing grade in an academic examination.
Abandon is a related term of fail.
As nouns the difference between abandon and fail
is that abandon is a yielding to natural impulses or inhibitions; freedom from artificial constraint, with loss of appreciation of consequences while fail is .As a verb abandon
is (obsolete) to subdue; to take control of .As an adverb abandon
is (obsolete|not comparable) freely; entirely.abandon
English
Etymology 1
* From (etyl) abandounen, from (etyl) abandoner, formed from . See also (l), (l). * Displaced (etyl) forleten .Verb
(en verb)- He abandoned himself to his favourite vice.
- Hope was overthrown, yet could not be abandoned .
- Many baby girls have been abandoned on the streets of Beijing.
- Being all this time abandoned from your bed.
- that he might abandon them from him
Synonyms
(synonyms of "abandon") * abdicate * blin * cede * desert * forego * forlet * forsake * give up * leave * quit * relinquish * renounce * resign * retire * surrender * withdraw from * withsake * yieldDerived terms
(terms derived from "abandon") * aband * abandoned * abandonee * abandoner * abandonwareEtymology 2
* From (etyl), from (etyl) abandon, from abondonner.Noun
(en noun)- I envy those chroniclers who assert with reckless but sincere abandon : 'I was there. I saw it happen. It happened thus.'
- They needed to have an abandon in their performance that you just can’t get out of people in the middle of the night when they’re barefoot.
Synonyms
* (giving up to impulses) wantonness, unrestraint, libertinism, abandonment, profligacy, unconstraintAdverb
(en adverb)- His ribbes and scholder fel adoun,/Men might se the liver abandoun .
References
fail
English
Verb
(en verb)A new prescription, passage=As the world’s drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}
- There shall not fail thee a man on the throne.
- A poor Irish Widow […] went forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; — till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever […]
citation, passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.}}
- though that seat of earthly bliss be failed
- The crops failed last year.
- as the waters fail from the sea
- Till Lionel's issue fails , his should not reign.
- If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not be attributed to their size.
- When earnestly they seek / Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail .
- A sick man fails .
- had the king in his last sickness failed
- Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps / Shall grieve him, if I fail not.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb which takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) fall on one's faceAntonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) succeedDerived terms
* failure * fail-safeNoun
- The project was full of fail .