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Abortive   /əbˈɔrtɪv/   Listen
adjective
Abortive  adj.  
1.
Produced by abortion.as, an abortive child. (R.)
2.
Made from the skin of a still-born animal; as, abortive vellum. (Obs.)
3.
Rendering fruitless or ineffectual. (Obs.) "Plunged in that abortive gulf."
4.
Coming to naught; failing in its effect; miscarrying; fruitless; unsuccessful; as, an abortive attempt. "An abortive enterprise."
5.
(Biol.) Imperfectly formed or developed; rudimentary; sterile; as, an abortive organ, stamen, ovule, etc.
6.
(Med.)
(a)
Causing abortion; as, abortive medicines.
(b)
Cutting short the period of an illness; as, abortive treatment of typhoid fever.


noun
Abortive  n.  
1.
That which is born or brought forth prematurely; an abortion. (Obs.)
2.
A fruitless effort or issue. (Obs.)
3.
(Med.) A medicine to which is attributed the property of causing abortion; also called an abortifacient.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Abortive" Quotes from Famous Books



... The Royal Society was incorporated in 1663 as the Royal Society of London for promoting Natural Knowledge. In the same year there was an abortive insurrection in the North against the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... an error while retrieval was possible. The Persians, we may be sure, grew dispirited under such a leader; and the Egyptians naturally took heart. It seems to have been shortly after the return of Cambyses from his abortive expedition against Ethiopia that symptoms of an intention to revolt began to manifest themselves in Egypt. The priests declared an incarnation of Apis, and the whole country burst out into rejoicings. It was probably now that Psammenitus, who had hitherto ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... Snaggs explained to them exactly what they ought to have done, and what they had failed to do, in order to ensure the success of their campaign against play-acting in the Fair; a campaign which now for several years past had been abortive—largely (it was rumoured) owing to the secret jealousy of the Church ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... attracted by prurient sexual adventures. A vulgar work obviously meant to appeal to a neurotic taste for sexuality, it includes no attack on Swift as it explores at length some topics to which Gulliver in his memoirs only tangentially alludes. The second abortive effort, an animal satire of exotic talking fowl, also resembles Swift's satire as it touches on several similar topics—the hypocrisy of the people, the scepticism of their nobility, the love of luxury of the higher clergy—but again because it includes no comment on Swift's ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... to be cashiered. I suppose "he" (as Rogers calls everybody's husband) went out hunting with the idea of diverting his mind from dwelling on its loss. Abortive effort! ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens


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