Meaning of abject | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Existing in or sunk to a low condition, position, or state; contemptible, despicable, miserable.
2. Complete; downright; utter.
   broadly
3. Lower than nearby areas; low-lying.
   broadly, rare
4. Of a person: cast down in hope or spirit; showing utter helplessness, hopelessness, or resignation; also, grovelling; ingratiating; servile.
5. Marginalized as deviant.
   noun-from-verb, usually

Translations

Examples

“These whelpes of the first lytter of gentilitie, these exhalations, drawen vp to the heauen of honour from the dunghill of abiect fortune, haue long been on horsebacke to come riding to your diuellship; but, I know not how, lyke Saint George, they are alwaies mounted but neuer moue.”

“VVhen as thoſe fallovv Deere, and huge-hancht Stags that graz'd / Vpon her ſhaggy Heaths, the paſſenger amaz'd / To ſee their mighty Heards, vvith high-palmd heads to threat / The vvoods of o'regrovvne Oakes; as though they meant to ſet / Their hornes to th'others heights. / But novv, both thoſe and theſe / Are by vile gaine deuour'd: So abiect are our daies.”

“[W]ith fierce Winds Orion arm'd / Hath vext the Red-Sea Coaſt, whoſe waves orethrew / Buſiris and his Memphian Chivalrie, / While with perfidious hatred they purſu'd / The Sojourners of Goſhen, who beheld / From the ſafe ſhore their floating Carkaſes / And broken Chariot Wheels, ſo thick beſtrown / Abject and loſt lay theſe, covering the Flood, / Under amazement of their hideous change.”

“By hovv much from the top of vvondrous glory, / Strongeſt of mortal men, / To lovveſt pitch of abject fortune thou art fall'n.”

“Do you think, my dear Mrs. James, if the Tables had been turned, if my Fortune had been as high in the World as yours, and you in my Diſtreſs and abject Condition, that I would not have climbed as high as the Monument to viſit you?”

“The wide dominion of the Franks was severed into a thousand pieces. Nothing more than a nominal dignity was left to the abject heirs of an illustrious name, Charles the Bald, and Charles the Fat, and Charles the Simple.”

“Meanwhile, nearly fifty million dollars were also funnelled through mirror trades to the Khanani network, whose clients include associates of Hezbollah and the Taliban. Deutsche Bank’s reputation was abject even before the mirror-trades scandal broke.”

“abject failure   abject nonsense   abject terror”

“Lord Howard of Escrick accused [John] Ayloffe of proposing to assassinate the Duke of York; but Lord Howard was an abject liar; and this story was not part of his original confession, but was added afterwards by way of supplement, and therefore deserves no credit whatever.”

“I flung myself before him on my knees, and with floods of tears besought him to release me from this engagement, assuring him that my cowardice was abject, and that in every point of intellect and character I was his hopeless and derisible inferior.”

“The Roots of this Plant [healing wolfsbane (Aconitum anthora)] increaſe abundantly, ſoon overrunning a large Piece of Ground, therefore ſhould be confin'd in ſome abject Part of the Garden, or planted under Trees, it being very hardy, and growing in almoſt every Soil or Situation.”

“Oh Noble Lord, bethinke thee of thy birth, / Call home thy ancient thoughts from baniſhment, / And baniſh hence theſe abiect lovvlie dreames: […]”

“O that I vvere a God, to ſhoot forth Thunder / Vpon theſe paltry, ſeruile, abiect Drudges: / Small things make baſe men proud.”

“[T]hoſe common and quotidian infirmities that ſo neceſſarily attend me, and doe ſeeme to be my very nature, have ſo dejected me, ſo broken the eſtimation that I ſhould have othervviſe of my ſelf, that I repute my ſelfe the moſt abjecteſt piece of mortality: […]”

“Honeſt men who tell their Sovereigns what they expect from them, and what obedience they ſhall be always ready to pay them, are not upon an equal foot with ſuch baſe and abject flatterers; and are therefore always in danger of being the laſt in the Royal favour.”

“Indeed, I know nothing ſo abject as the behaviour of a man canvaſſing for a ſeat in parliament— […]”

“To ſtrike any perſon, even in the moſt abject condition, was a thing in a manner unknown, and would be highly diſgraceful.”

“Every rich and goodnatured lord was pestered by authors with a mendicancy so importunate, and a flattery so abject, as may in our time seem incredible.”

“We shall not always plant while others reap / The golden increment of bursting fruit, / Not always countenance, abject and mute / That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; […]”

“Benbow watched Goodwin seat the old man in a chair, where he sat obediently with that tentative and abject eagerness of a man who has but one pleasure left and whom the world can reach only through one sense, for he was both blind and deaf: a short man with a bald skull and a round, full-fleshed, rosy face in which his cataracted eyes looked like two clots of phlegm.”

“The abject can easily be grafted onto the immigrant body, which is often conceived as something to be excluded in order to preserve a coherent yet racist national imaginary.”

“The disclosure of tolerance's hidden phobic lining fits in well with queer theory's embrace of the abject.”

CEFR level