abortion

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The expulsion from the womb of a foetus or embryo before it is fully developed, with loss of the foetus.

   “Swines-bread, so used, doth not onely speed / A tardy labour; but (without great heed) / If over it a Child-great Woman stride, / Instant abortion often doth betide.”

   “At any time after impregnation, abortion may take place: it is one of the most common complaints of pregnancy, whence it is a matter of no small consequence that every practitioner should well understand it.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The expulsion from the womb of a foetus or embryo before it is fully developed, with loss of the foetus.

   “Mary decided to have an abortion because she was too young to raise a baby.”

   “It is impossible for an abortion clinic to have a waiting list of more than nine months.”

   “The story of Ms. He and her mother began in the early 1960s, shortly before the Cultural Revolution shook China. Her young parents, who worked in a pottery factory in Rongchang in present-day Chongqing municipality, conceived her while unmarried. “They were told by the factory, ‘Have an abortion or be fired’,” she said. They chose to keep her and were fired.”

   “Representative Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania will resign from Congress after claims that the anti-abortion Republican had urged a woman he was having an extramarital affair with to have an abortion.”

3. (archaic, countable, uncountable)An aborted foetus; an abortus.

   “‘It seems too hairy for an abortion, and too small for a mature birth.’”

   “The Fascist poem, one may fear, will be a horrid little abortion such as one sees in a glass jar in the museum of some county town.”

4. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)A misshapen person or thing; a monstrosity.

   “Insomuch that I do honestly believe, there can be no place in the world, where such intolerable abortions, begotten of the sculptor’s chisel, are to be found in such profusion, as in Rome.”

   “His voice was the most pitiable abortion of a voice I had ever heard.”

   “Dickey on his own manages to turn a simple bo diddley 1-2-3-4 into an absolute abortion of a song.”

   “an absolute abortion of a book”

5. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)Failure or abandonment of a project, promise, goal etc.

   “The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes.”

   “The transfer or loss of the project manager before the project is completed will result in lost continuity and delay or the abortion of the project and/or the report.”

   “[…] the abrupt abortion of the trip after eleven days.”

6. (countable, uncountable)Arrest of development of any organ, so that it remains an imperfect formation or is absorbed.
7. (countable, uncountable)The cessation of an illness or disease at a very early stage.