Definition of "abortion"

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

1. A spontaneous abortion; a miscarriage.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • 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.

     1605 , Josuah, transl. Sylvester, “The Third Day of the First Week”, in Devine Weekes and Workes, translation of La Premiere Sepmaine by Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, lines 693–696

   • 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.

     1809, William Nicholson, The British Encyclopaedia, volume IV

2. An induced abortion.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

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

     1997, George Carlin, Brain Droppings‎, New York: Hyperion Books, page 93

   • 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.

     2014 January 20, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “‘She. Herself. Naked.': The Art of He Chengyao”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 16 August 2023, Sinosphere‎

   • 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.

     2017 October 5, Ben Jacobs, The Guardian‎

(now rare) An aborted foetus; an abortus.  quotations

(figuratively) A misshapen person or thing; a monstrosity.  quotations  examples

(figuratively) Failure or abandonment of a project, promise, goal etc.  quotations  examples

(biology) Arrest of development of any organ, so that it remains an imperfect formation or is absorbed.

The cessation of an illness or disease at a very early stage.  examples