A Dictionary of the English Language/abandon

by Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

To Aba’ndon. v. a. [Fr. abandonner. Derived, according to Menage, from the Italian abandonare, which signifies to forsake his colours; bandum [vexillum] deserere. Pasquier thinks it a coalition of a ban donner, to give up to a proscription; in which sense we, at this day, mention the ban of the empire. Ban, in our own old dialect, signifies a curse; and to abandon, if considered as compounded between French and Saxon, is exactly equivalent to diris divovere.]

1.

To give up, resign, or quit; often followed by the particle to.

If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow,
As it is spoke, she never wilt admit me.Shakesp. Twelfth Night.

The passive gods behold the Greeks defile
Their temples, and abandon to the spoil
Their own abodes; we, feeble few, conspire
To save a sinking town, involv'd in fire.Dryd. Æneid.

Who is he so abandoned to sottish credulity, as to think, that a clod of earth in a sack, may ever, by eternal shaking, receive the fabric of man's body?Bentley's Sermons.

Must he, whose altars on the Phrygian shore,
With frequent rites, and pure, avow'd thy pow'r,
Be doomed the word of human ills to prove,
Unbless'd, abandon'd to the wrath of Jove?Pope's Odyssey b. i. l. 80.

1.

To desert; to forsake: in an ill sense.

The princes using the passions of fearing evil, and desiring to escape, only to serve the rule of virtue, not to abandon one's self, leapt to a rib of the ship.Sidney, b. ii..

Seeing the hurt stag alone,
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends,
'Tis right, quoth he; thus misery doth part
The flux of company.Shakesp. As you like it..

What fate a wretched fugitive attends,
Scorn'd by my foes, abandon'd by my friends.Dryd. Æneid, 2.

But to the parting goddess thus she pray'd;
Propitious still be present to my aid,
Nor quite abandon your once-favour'd maid.Dryd. Fab.

3.

To forsake, to leave.

He boldly spake, Sir knight, if knight thou be,
Abandon this forestalled place at erst,
For fear of further harm, I counsel thee.Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. ii. cant. 4. stanz. 39.