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Abject vs Deject - What's the difference?

abject | deject |

As verbs the difference between abject and deject

is that abject is to cast off or out; to reject while deject is make sad or dispirited.

As an adjective abject

is rejected; cast aside.

As a noun abject

is a person in the lowest and most despicable condition; a castaway; outcast.

abject

English

Etymology 1

* From (etyl) .

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • (obsolete) Rejected; cast aside.
  • Sunk to or existing in a low condition, state, or position.
  • *
  • Cast down in spirit or hope; degraded; servile; grovelling; despicable; lacking courage; offered in a humble and often ingratiating spirit.
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • Showing utter hopelessness; helplessness; showing resignation; wretched.
  • *
  • Usage notes
    * Nouns to which "abject" is often applied: poverty, fear, terror, submission, misery, failure, state, condition, apology, humility, servitude, manner, coward.
    Synonyms
    * beggarly, contemptible, cringing, degraded, groveling, ignoble, mean, mean-spirited, slavish, vile, worthless

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person in the lowest and most despicable condition; a castaway; outcast.
  • *
  • *
  • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) abjecten, derived from the adjective form.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To cast off or out; to reject.
  • *
  • (obsolete) To cast down; hence, to abase; to degrade; to lower; to debase.
  • (John Donne)

    References

    English heteronyms ----

    deject

    English

    Verb

  • Make sad or dispirited.
  • * Benjamin Franklin
  • I pitied poor Miss Read's unfortunate situation. She was generally dejected , seldom cheerful, and avoided company.
  • (obsolete) To cast down.
  • * Udall
  • Christ dejected himself even unto the hells.
  • * Fuller
  • Sometimes she dejects her eyes in a seeming civility; and many mistake in her a cunning for a modest look.

    Quotations

    * 1927 Harold Victor Routh: God, Man, & Epic Poetry: A Study in Comparative Literature [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC03459385&id=fx8LAAAAMAAJ&q=dejects&dq=dejects&pgis=1] (page 215) *: Vergil succeeds in filling Hades with all that depresses and dejects in his world, so that Aeneas encounters the causes of Augustan pessimism. * 1933 Arthur Melville Jordan: Educational Psychology (page 60) [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00764755&id=U6cQm3IcVHcC&q=%22there+is+nothing+which+dejects+school+children+quite+so+%22&dq=%22there+is+nothing+which+dejects+school+children+quite+so+%22&pgis=1] *: On the other hand, there is nothing which dejects school children quite so much as failure.

    Derived terms

    * dejected * dejection