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Definition: withdrawing support or help despite allegiance or responsibility; "his abandonment of his wife and children left them penniless" the act of giving something up Synonyms: abandonment, defection, forsaking See Also: abscondment, absence without leave, apostasy, bolt, decampment, deviationism, exposure, rejection, tergiversation, unauthorized absence, withdrawal
Webster's 1913 Dictionary Definition: \De*ser"tion\, n. sertion.] 1. The act of deserting or forsaking; abandonment of a service, a cause, a party, a friend, or any post of duty; the quitting of one's duties willfully and without right; esp., an absconding from military or naval service.
Such a resignation would have seemed to his superior a desertion or a reproach. --Bancroft.
2. The state of being forsaken; desolation; as, the king in his desertion.
3. Abandonment by God; spiritual despondency.
The spiritual agonies of a soul under desertion. --South.
Thesaurus Terms Related Terms: abandonment, absence without leave, absquatulation, apostasy, atheism, AWOL, backsliding, betrayal, bolt, breakaway, crossing-over, decampment, defection, defenselessness, degeneration, dereliction, deserter, desolation, disappearance, disappearing act, disloyalty, elopement, exit, faithlessness, fall from grace, fatherlessness, flight, forlornness, French leave, fugitation, going over, hasty retreat, hegira, helplessness, homelessness, impiety, impiousness, irreligion, irreverence, kithlessness, lapse, lapse from grace, motherlessness, quick exit, ratting, recidivation, recidivism, recreancy, renunciation, running away, schism, scramming, secession, skedaddle, skedaddling, treason, turning traitor, undutifulness, walkout
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