Abstention Definition

ăb-stĕnshən, əb-
abstentions
noun
abstentions
The act or habit of deliberate self-denial.
American Heritage
The act or an instance of abstaining.
Webster's New World
An abstaining vote or voter.
12 ayes, 10 nays, and 8 abstentions.
American Heritage
The act of voluntarily refraining from taking some action, such as casting a vote or participating in a decision or deliberation.
Webster's New World Law

A federal court’s act of declining to exercise its jurisdiction while awaiting or deferring to a decision by a state court. In doing so, the federal court retains jurisdiction of the legal issues at hand and may decide those issues if the plaintiff is not satisfied with the state court’s decision. See also comity and relinquishment. Several rationales for a federal court’s abstention are named for the United States Supreme Court decision in which the rationale was first applied. These include.

Webster's New World Law
Synonyms:

Other Word Forms of Abstention

Noun

Singular:
abstention
Plural:
abstentions

Origin of Abstention

  • Late Latin abstentiō abstentiōn- from abstentus past participle of Latin abstinēre to hold back abstain

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • First attested in 1521. From French abstention, from Late Latin abstēntiō from Latin abstinēō (“withhold, to abstain”)

    From Wiktionary

Abstention Sentence Examples

  • Sir George Grey found it impossible to maintain a policy of total abstention from the affairs of the republics.

  • Reverting to the origin and the meaning of the feast, modern criticism draws attention to the different nature of the two observances combined with the name Passover, the pastoral sacrifice of the paschal lamb and the agricultural observance of a seven days' abstention from unleavened bread.

  • Abstention may show antipathy to the lot of them.

  • So successful was their prudential abstention that no regular war occurred between Turkey and Poland during the two centuries of their sway.

  • With regard to the abstention from leavened bread, the inquiry is somewhat more complicated.

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Words Starting With

AABABS

Words Ending With

NONION

Unscrambles

abstention

Words Starting With A and Ending With N

Starts With A & Ends With NStarts With AB & Ends With NStarts With A & Ends With ON

Word Length

10 Letter Words10 Letter Words Starting With A10 Letter Words Ending With N