1. To leave behind, to forsake, or to relinquish: Lucinda abandoned her newborn boy on the doorstep of a family in a better part town in hopes that he would have a better life there than he would with her.

Abandon and its past tense form, abandoned, are words of wide significance, indicating the complete giving up or withdrawal from people or things of any kind.

To abandon implies a previous association with responsibility for or control of something; so, a person may abandon or forsake, a house, friends, or even a family.

2. To desert, to give up, or to leave: The captain shouted to the crew, "Abandon ship!"
3. To discontinue, to quit, or to stop trying: The scientist abandoned his research because of a lack of funds.
4. Etymology: from the Old French phrase laisser a bandon, "to relinquish to another person's control".