Abandonments

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The occurrence of leaving behind a person or item without plans to come back includes emotional ties, relationships, and material possessions as well as the act of giving up ownership or responsibility
2. The state of having deserted someone or something, whether in a physical or emotional sense, involves the relinquishing of connections or ownership, impacting both relationships and belongings
3. The act of forsaking someone or something often entails leaving them without intention of return, signifying a loss of both emotional bonds and material ownership

Etymology: The plural of "abandonment" follows the noun it is built from, so the real story belongs to "abandonment" itself. English borrowed it from French "abandonnement," which grew out of "abandonner," meaning "to abandon, relinquish." That French verb was originally a legal phrase, "mettre à bandon," meaning to hand something over to another person's jurisdiction, so giving something up began as a matter of formally surrendering authority. The key word is "bandon," which comes from Medieval Latin "bandum" or "bannum," meaning "order, decree, ban." The same root gives English "banns," the public announcements of an intended marriage, so a ban and a banns share an ancestor. Over time the sense moved from handing a thing over to someone else's control to simply leaving it behind, and the English noun carries that wider meaning of deserting or giving up a person, place, or duty.

Synonyms: desertions, forsakings, relinquishments, discards, lettings go

Antonyms: retention, holding, keeping, maintenance, preservation