[f. L. abort- ppl. stem of aborī-ri to miscarry, disappear, f. ab off, away + orī-ri to arise, appear, come into being. Cf. Fr. avorte-r:—late L. *abortā-re, f. abort-us.]
1. intr. To miscarry, to have a premature delivery of a child.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong., Avorter, to abort, or when a woman goeth not hir full time.
1655. Lestrange, Charles I., 104. This Spring the Queen … aborted of a son.
1859. Todd, Cycl. An. & Ph., V. 615/2. A woman who aborted at the sixth month.
b. trans. fig. To bring to a premature or fruitless termination.
1614. Reliq. Wotton. (1672), 431. It [the Parliament] is aborted before it was born.
1880. Contemp. Rev., XXXVII. 248. Lord Brougham did write a novel, but it was rather aborted than produced.
2. Biol. To become sterile or nugatory; to undergo arrestment of development, so as to remain in a merely rudimentary condition, or to shrink away entirely; said either of the development of an individual, or of a race of plants or animals.
1862. Darwin, Fertiliz. Orchids, 70. If the discs had been small … we might have concluded that they had begun to abort.
1877. Mivart, Elem. Anat., iii. 112. They [the turbinal bones] may, on the contrary, abort altogether, as is the case in the probably smell-less Porpoises.
