abject

English

Etymology 1

The adjective is derived from Late Middle English abiect, abject (“expelled, outcast, rejected, wretched”, adjective) , from Middle French abject (“worthy of utmost contempt or disgust, despicable, vile; of a person: brought low, cast down; of low social position”) (modern French abject, abjet (obsolete)), and from its etymon Latin abiectus (“abandoned; cast or thrown aside; dejected, downcast; ordinary, undistinguished, unimportant; (by extension) base, sordid; despicable, vile; humble, low; subservient”), an adjective use of the perfect passive participle of abiciō (“to discard, throw away or down; to cast or push away or aside; to abandon, give up; to belittle, degrade, humble; to lower, reduce; to overthrow, vanquish; to undervalue; to waste”), from ab- (prefix meaning ‘away; away from; from’) + iaciō (“to cast, hurl, throw, throw away”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(H)yeh₁- (“to throw”)).

The noun is derived from the adjective.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ăbʹjĕkt, IPA^(key): /ˈæbd͡ʒɛkt/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: ăbʹjĕkt, IPA^(key): /ˈæbˌd͡ʒɛkt/

• Audio (CA)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ab‧ject

Adjective

abject (comparative abjecter or more abject, superlative abjectest or most abject)

1. Existing in or sunk to a low condition, position, or state; contemptible, despicable, miserable.

   Synonyms: degraded, (archaic) demiss, ignoble, mean, vile, wretched, worthless

   Antonym: unabject

   • 1592, Thomas Nash[e], Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Deuill. , London: [John Charlewood for] Richard Ihones, , →OCLC; republished as J[ohn] Payne Collier, editor, Pierce Penniless’s Supplication to the Devil. , London: for the Shakespeare Society, 1842, →OCLC, page 22:

     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.

   • 1612, Michael Drayton, “The Twelfth Song”, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned Isle of Great Britaine, , London: H L for Mathew Lownes; I. Browne; I. Helme; I. Busbie, published 1613, →OCLC, pages 206–207:

     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.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC, lines 305–313:

     [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.

   • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, .”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: J. M for John Starkey , →OCLC, page 18, lines 168–170:

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

   • 1751 December (indicated as 1752), Henry Fielding, “Containing Matters that Require No Preface”, in Amelia, volume II, London: A Millar , →OCLC, book V, page 129:

     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?

   • 1840 January, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “ Lord Clive. ”, in Critical and Historical Essays, Contributed to the Edinburgh Review. , 2nd edition, volume III, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, , published 1843, →OCLC, page 119:

     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.

   • 2020 September 23, Ed Caesar, “The FinCEN Files Shed New Light on a Scandalous Episode at Deutsche Bank”, in The New Yorker‎, New York, N.Y.: New Yorker Magazine Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 March 2022:

     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.

2. (by extension)
   1. (chiefly with a negative connotation) Complete; downright; utter.

      Synonyms: out-and-out, unmitigated; see also Thesaurus:total

      abject failure   abject nonsense   abject terror

      • 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter V, in The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, footnote, page 527:

        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.

      • 1885, Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, “Story of the Destroying Angel”, in More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 45:

        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.

   2. (rare) Lower than nearby areas; low-lying.
      • 1733, Philip Miller, “ACONITUM, Wolf’s-bane”, in The Gardeners Dictionary: , 2nd edition, volume I, London: C Rivington, , →OCLC, column 1:

        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.

3. Of a person: cast down in hope or spirit; showing utter helplessness, hopelessness, or resignation; also, grovelling; ingratiating; servile.

   Synonyms: beggarly, cringing, slavish

   Antonym: unabject

   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 209, column 2:

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

   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 137, column 2:

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

   • 1642, Tho[mas] Browne, “The Second Part”, in Religio Medici. , 4th edition, London: E. Cotes for Andrew Crook , published 1656, →OCLC, section 7, pages 149–150:

     [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: […]

   • 1710 October 23 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Whig-Examiner: No. 5. Thursday, October 12. ”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; , volume IV, London: Jacob Tonson, , published 1721, →OCLC, page 352:

     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.

   • 1771, [Tobias Smollett], “To Dr. Lewis”, in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker , volume I, Dublin: A. Leathley, , →OCLC, page 112:

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

   • 1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. , London: J Dodsley, , →OCLC, page 202:

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

   • 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 405:

     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.

   • 1927, Countee Cullen, “From the Dark Tower”, in Copper Sun, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, part 1 (Color); republished in James Weldon Johnson, editor, The Book of American Negro Poetry , revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1931, →OCLC, page 228:

     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; […]

   • 1931 February 9, William Faulkner, chapter II, in Sanctuary (The Modern Library of the World’s Best Books; no. 61), New York, N.Y.: The Modern Library, published 1962, →OCLC, page 12:

     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.

4. (sociology, usually nominalized) Marginalized as deviant.
   • 2007, Sean Brayton, “MTV's Jackass: Transgression, Abjection and the Economy of White Masculinity”, in Journal of Gender Studies, volume 16, page 59:

     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.

   • 2009, W. C. Harris, Queer Externalities: Hazardous Encounters in American Culture, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 98:

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

Derived terms

• abjectification
• abjectify
• abjectly
• abjectness
• nonabject
• unabject

Related terms

• abjection
• abjective (obsolete, rare)

Translations

Noun

abject (plural abjects)

1. A person in the lowest and most despicable condition; an oppressed person; an outcast; also, such people as a class.

   Synonyms: (rare) heanling, wretch

   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt  (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Seconde Pistle off Paul the Apostle to the Corrinthyans vij:[6], folio ccxl, verso:

     Nevertheleſſe he thatt comfortith the abiecte⸝ comforted vs at the cõmynge of Titus.

   • c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third.  (First Quarto), London: Valentine Sims for Andrew Wise, , published 1597, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     VVe are the Queenes abiects and muſt obey.

   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], column 1:

     For honour trauels in a ſtraight ſo narrovv, / VVhere one but goes a breaſt, keepe then the path: / […] if you giue vvay, / Or hedge aſide from the direct forth right; / Like to an entred Tyde, they all ruſh by, / And leaue you hindmoſt: / Or like a gallant Horſe falne in firſt ranke, / Lye there for pauement to the abiect, neere / Ore-run and trampled on: […]

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Psalms 35:15, column 1:

     But in mine aduerſitie they reioyced, and gathered themſelues together: yea, the abiects gathered themſelues together againſt me, & I knew it not, they did teare me, and ceaſed not, […]

   • , George Herbert, “The Sacrifice”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple: Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, , →OCLC; reprinted London: Elliot Stock, , 1885, →OCLC, page 23:

     Servants and abjects flout me; they are wittie: / Now propheſie who ſtrikes thee, is their dittie. / So they in me denie themſelves all pitie: / Was ever grief, [like mine?]

   • 1818–1819 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Prometheus Unbound”, in Prometheus Unbound , London: C and J Ollier , published 1820, →OCLC, Act III, scene iv, page 118:

     [T]he subject of a tyrant's will / Became, worse fate, the abject of his own, / Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death.

   • 1830, Walter Scott, “Auchindrane; or, The Ayrshire Tragedy”, in The Doom of Devorgoil, a Melo-drama; Auchindrane; or, The Ayrshire Tragedy, Edinburgh: [Ballantyne and Company] for Cadell and Company; London: Simpkin and Marshall, →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 309:

     Hear ye the serf I bred, begin to reckon / Upon his rights and pleasure! Who am I— / Thou abject, who am I, whose will thou thwartest?

   • 1832, [Isaac Taylor], “The Third Heavens”, in Saturday Evening. , London: Holdsworth and Ball, →OCLC, page 414:

     Let us look then to the widely-severed ranks of an Asiatic empire.—There is first its wretched and vilified class, upon which the superincumbent structure of the social system presses so heavily as almost to crush existence; […] Shall these abjects—these victims—these outcasts, know any thing of pleasure?

Translations

Etymology 2

From Late Middle English abjecten (“to cast out, expel”) , from abiect, abject (adjective) (see etymology 1).

Sense 3 (“of a fungus: to give off (spores or sporidia)”) is modelled after German abschleudern (“to give off forcefully”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: ăbjĕktʹ, IPA^(key): /æbˈd͡ʒɛkt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛkt
• Hyphenation: ab‧ject

Verb

abject (third-person singular simple present abjects, present participle abjecting, simple past and past participle abjected) (transitive, chiefly archaic)

1. To cast off or out (someone or something); to reject, especially as contemptible or inferior.
   • 1611, Iohn Speed [i.e., John Speed], “Elizabeth Queene of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. ”, in The History of Great Britaine under the Conquests of yͤ Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. , London: William Hall and John Beale, for John Sudbury and George Humble, , →OCLC, book IX ( ), paragraph 104, page 848, column 1:

     […] Dauid durſt not touch Saul, though he vvas abiected by God.

   • 2001, Le’a Kent, “Fighting Abjection: Representing Fat Women”, in Jana Evans Braziel, Kathleen LeBesco, editors, Bodies out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, →ISBN, part I (Revaluing Corpulence, Redefining Fat Subjectivities), page 141:

     Rather than abjecting her own fat body, the Ipecac-taking fat girl is abjecting diet culture.

2. To cast down (someone or something); to abase; to debase; to degrade; to lower; also, to forcibly impose obedience or servitude upon (someone); to subjugate.
   • a. 1632 (date written), John Donne, “Sermon IX. Preached on Candlemas Day.”, in Henry Alford, editor, The Works of John Donne, D.D., , volume I, London: John W Parker, , published 1839, →OCLC, Expression error: Unexpected < operator./mode/1up page 182:

     What phrases of abjecting themselves, in respect of the prince, can exceed David's humble expressing of himself to Saul?

3. (mycology) Of a fungus: to (forcibly) give off (spores or sporidia).

Derived terms

• abjected (adjective, noun)
• abjectedness

Translations

References

Further reading

• Philip Babcock Gove (editor), Webster's Third International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (G. & C. Merriam Co., 1976 , →ISBN), page 4
• Elliott K. Dobbie, C. William Dunmore, Robert K. Barnhart, et al. (editors), Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2004 , →ISBN), page 3
• Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abject”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 5.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French abject, from Latin abiectus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɑbˈjɛkt/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ab‧ject
• Rhymes: -ɛkt

Adjective

abject (comparative abjecter, superlative abjectst)

1. reprehensible, despicable, abject

   Het is teleologisch, infaam en het is abject.

   It is teleological, scandalous and it is reprehensible.

Inflection

Derived terms

• abjectheid

French

Etymology

From Latin abiectus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ab.ʒɛkt/

• abject

  (file)

Adjective

abject (feminine abjecte, masculine plural abjects, feminine plural abjectes)

1. (literary) Worthy of utmost contempt or disgust; vile; despicable
2. (literary, obsolete) of the lowest social position

Usage notes

• Abject lacks the idea of groveling, of moral degradation over time that is present in the English word.

Derived terms

• abjectement

Related terms

• abjection

Descendants

• → German: abjekt
• → Norwegian Bokmål: abjekt
• → Romanian: abject

Further reading

• “abject”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French abject, from Latin abiectus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /abˈʒekt/

Adjective

abject m or n (feminine singular abjectă, masculine plural abjecți, feminine and neuter plural abjecte)

1. abject

Declension