ABJECT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Abject

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/ˈæbdʒɛkt/ Listen

adjective

abject adj.

Cast down; low-lying. (Obs.) "From the safe shore their floating carcasses And broken chariot wheels; so thick bestrown Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood."

Degraded; servile; groveling; despicable; as, abject posture, fortune, thoughts. "Base and abject flatterers." "An abject liar." "And banish hence these abject, lowly dreams."

Sunk to a low condition; down in spirit or hope; miserable; of persons.

Humiliating; degrading; wretched; of situations; as, abject poverty.

Synonyms: Mean; groveling; cringing; mean-spirited; slavish; ignoble; worthless; vile; beggarly; contemptible; degraded.

noun

Abject n. A person in the lowest and most despicable condition; a castaway. (Obs.) "Shall these abjects, these victims, these outcasts, know any thing of pleasure?"

verb

Abject v. t. To cast off or down; hence, to abase; to degrade; to lower; to debase. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Abject'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Abject" Quotes from Famous Books

... obedience far better than all the doctrines which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced. It cuts up by the roots, not only all idea of forcible resistance, but even of civil opposition. It disposes men to an abject submission, not by opinion, which may be shaken by argument or altered by passion, but by the strong ties of public and private interest. For if all men who act in a public situation are equally ...

— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... his pillow, dark with rage and the unutterable fury that made of his being a volcano. The two men had been standing dumb before him, Donal pained for the man on whom this phial of devilish wrath had been emptied, he white and trembling with dismay—an abject creature, crushed by a cruel parent. When his father ceased, he still stood, still said nothing: power was gone from him. He grew ghastly, uttered a groan, and wavered. Donal supported him to a chair; he dropped into it, and leaned ...

— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... ambassadors to ask for the hand of his daughter, he answered, that he must take heed not to be spoiled by his thriving fortunes, or to turn his triumph into haughtiness; but let him rather bethink him to spare the conquered, and in this their abject estate to respect their former bright condition; let him learn to honour their past fortune in their present pitiable lot. Therefore, said Handwan, he must mind that he did not rob of his empire the man with whom he sought alliance, ...

— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... trying to sit up, but finding the attempt resulted only in the partial movement of a finger somewhere in the distance. "Have I really—surely, surely, I was not so abject as to faint?" ...

— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... Waife, with an abject, depressed manner; "I hope I said nothing that would have misbecome a poor broken vagabond like me. I am no prince in disguise,—a good-for-nothing varlet who should be too grateful to have something to keep ...

— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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