(obsolete) Someone or something born or brought forth prematurely; an abortion. / (obsolete) A fruitless effort.

(transitive, obsolete) To cause an abortion; to render without fruit.

(intransitive, now rare outside medicine) To miscarry; to bring forth (non-living) offspring prematurely.

In an abortive or untimely manner; immaturely; fruitlessly.

(rare) Pertaining to abortion; miscarrying; abortive.

(uncountable) The quality of being abortive. / (countable) The result or product of being abortive.

(obsolete) Produced by abortion; born prematurely and therefore unnatural. / Coming to nothing; failing in its effect. . / (biology) Imperfectly formed or developed; rudimentary; sterile.

(medicine) The expulsion from the womb of a foetus or embryo before it is fully developed, with loss of the foetus; either naturally as a spontaneous abortion (now usually called a miscarriage), or deliberately as an induced abortion.

(military, aeronautics) An early termination of a mission, action, or procedure in relation to missiles or spacecraft; the craft making such a mission. / (computing) The function used to abort a process.

plural of abort