noun
definition
That which is born or brought forth prematurely; an abortion.
definition
A fruitless effort or issue.
definition
A medicine to which is attributed the property of causing abortion, abortifacient.
verb
definition
To cause an abortion; to render without fruit.
adjective
definition
Produced by abortion; born prematurely and therefore unnatural.
example
an abortive child
definition
Coming to nothing; failing in its effect; miscarrying; fruitless; unsuccessful.
example
an abortive attempt
definition
Imperfectly formed or developed; rudimentary; sterile.
example
an abortive organ
definition
(pharmaceutical effect) Causing abortion; abortifacient
example
abortive medicines
definition
Cutting short; acting to halt or slow the progress (of a disease).
example
abortive treatment of typhoid fever
definition
Made from the skin of a still-born animal.
example
abortive vellum
Examples of abortive in a Sentence
The invasion of the Goths and the death of Decius put an end to the abortive attempt.
Abortive medications are taken with the onset of the first sign of a migraine.
On his return home he was immediately sent on the abortive expedition to Hanover.
He returned to take part in an abortive rising in 1464.
During the war of 1770 the Greeks had risen in an abortive rebellion, promptly crushed by the Turks.
Coloured leaves representing abortive carpels.
The spreading branches have a tendency to assume a tortuous form, owing to the central shoots becoming abortive, and the growth thus being continued laterally, causing a zigzag development, more exaggerated in old trees and those standing in From Kotschy, op. cit.
He speaks as an eye-witness of the king's doings at Messina, in Cyprus, at the siege of Acre, and in the abortive campaign which followed the capture of that city.
Prerogative, despite Bacon's advice and efforts, clashed more than once with liberty; Salisbury's bold schemes for relieving the embarrassment caused by the reckless extravagance of the king proved abortive, and the House was dissolved in February 1611.
His sympathies were with the Jacobites, whom he kept informed of all the negotiations for the union; in 1713 he took part in an abortive movement aiming at the repeal of the union.
In 1262 the Tatar tribute was felt so grievously all over Russia that preparations were made for a general insurrection, and Alexander, who knew that an abortive rebellion would make the yoke heavier, was obliged to go to the Horde in person to prevent the Tatars from again attacking Russia.
Common names are fitted for use by the wouldbe users being first delivered from abortive conceptions, and thereupon enabled to bring to the birth living and organic notions.
At first taken by surprise, he turned the abortive attack into a complete rout.
Double nuts are the result of the equal development of the two carpels of the original flower, of which ordinarily one becomes abortive; fusion of two or more nuts is not uncommon.
The slave insurrection under Nat Turner in 1831 led to a second abortive effort, this time by the legislature, to do away with the fateful institution.
Attempts to naturalize that well-known Australian grass-parrakeet the budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus) in England have so far proved abortive, and none of the species experimented with in Norfolk and Bedfordshire effected a settlement.
In 1526 he had aided John the Constant, elector of Saxony, to form an alliance of reforming princes; and in 152c he called together the abortive conference at Marburg, hoping thus to close the breach between Lutherans and Zwinglians.
This attempt to end the conflict proved, however, abortive, and on the 15th of January at 2 P.M.
The abortive insurrection of 1780-82, led by the Inca Tupac Amarti, was never a general rising, and was directed rather against Creole tyranny than against Spanish rule.
Pigott retired to the headquarters of the sect, the "Abode of Love" in Somerset, and all efforts to interview him or to obtain details of the life of the community were abortive.
The relation of the Byzantine Church to the Roman may be described as one of growing estrangement from the 5th to the 1 ith century, and a series of abortive attempts at reconciliation since the latter date.
In Cynosurus (Dog's tail) -- C the pectinate involucre which conceals the spikelet is a barren or abortive spikelet.
His mission, however proved abortive, and after many difficulties and dangers he returned to Egypt at the end of the year.
It was this influence as exerted by the successive advocates of Holland, Paul Buys and Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, Johan van which rendered abortive the well-meant efforts of the Oldenbarneveldt.
In 491 he went to Aegina to punish the island for its submission to Darius, but the intrigues of his colleague once again rendered his mission abortive.
Only a knowledge of the great loss of capital that has resulted from abortive reservoir construction justifies this notice of defects which can always be avoided, and are too often the direct result, not of design, but of parsimony in providing during the execution of such works, and especially below ground, a sufficiency of intelligent, experienced and conscientious supervision.
A dual control was arranged in 1890, but the convention then signed proved abortive owing to the objection of the Transvaal to join the South African Customs Union.
The first of the kings troubles was an abortive rising in the north riding of Yorkshire, the only district where Richard III.
From that time forward the Tudor dynasty was no longer in &tabflshserious danger; there were still some abortive plots, mentof but none that had any prospect of winning popular the Tudor support.
The insurrection had from the first proved abortive.
The labors of the conference proved, abortive.
Lowe, who had incurred unpopularity by his fiscal measures, and especially by an abortive suggestion for the taxation of matches, was transferred from the exchequer to the home office, and Gladstone himself assumed the duties of chancellor of the exchequer.
The British government refused to be a party to this memorandum, which in consequence became abortive.
The Constantinople conference proved abortive, and in the beginning of 1877 Russia declared war.
Nevertheless he consented to open negotiations with the Caps, and was the principal Hat representative on the abortive.
The vogue of Socinian views, which for a time affected men like Falkland and Chillingworth, led to the abortive fourth canon of 1640 against Socinian books.
After the abortive election of the king of Prussia to be emperor, he, with the other Austrians, left Frankfort.
At the base of each spikelet are two empty boat-shaped glumes or "chaff-scales," one to the right, the other to the left, and then a series of flowers, 2 to 8 in number, closely crowded together; the uppermost are abortive or sterile, - indeed, in some varieties only one or two of the flowers are fertile.
The evidence disclosed the fact that several abortive attempts had been previously made to murder Forster.
Local government for Ireland had always been part of the Unionist programme, and the vote on the abortive bill of 1892 had committed parliament to legislation.
But by his abortive efforts he had not yet been able to win over this immense force of tradition and turn it to his own purposes.
But although much zeal and self-denial were shown by these men, their efforts were abortive, and the mission was at length abandoned, leaving no fruit of their labours in a single church or convert.
Like the son of the Vedic Aditi, 4 Maui is a rejected and abortive child of his mother, but afterwards attains to the highest reputation.
On a second attempt of the same kind Ambrose was again employed; and although he was unsuccessful, it cannot be doubted that, if his advice had been followed, the schemes of the usurper would have proved abortive; but the enemy was permitted to enter Italy; and Milan was taken.
The regent's disreputable minister, Cardinal Dubois, patched up an abortive truce in 1720, but the appellants promptly "re-appealed" against it.
His chief contribution to the discussions during the later stages of the Gladstone and Rosebery ministries was in connexion with Mr Asquith's abortive Employers' Liability Bill, when he foreshadowed the method of dealing with this question afterwards carried out in the Compensation Act of 1897.
She established Columbia fish market (1869) in Bethnal Green, and presented it to the city, but owing to commercial difficulties this effort, which cost her over X200,000, proved abortive.
In 1806, and again in 1810, it was the centre of an abortive rising against the French, in consequence of which the fortifications of the castle were destroyed.
In such cases the flowers, so far as their functional capabilities are concerned, are usually abortive.
The peduncle occasionally becomes abortive, and in place of bearing a flower, is transformed into a tendril; at other times it is hollowed at the apex, so as apparently to form the lower part of the outer whorl of floral leaves as in Eschscholtzia.