abortive

[US]/əˈbɔːtɪv/
[UK]/əˈbɔːrtɪv/
Frequency: Very High

Translation

adj. unsuccessful;
n. abortifacient;
adv. unsuccessfully;

Phrases & Collocations

abortive attempt

abortive effort

Example Sentences

That was an abortive attempt.

an abortive coup attempt.

an abortive attempt to conclude the negotiations.

she made two abortive attempts at suicide.

It would be an abortive effort to try to close this wide price gap.

We had to abandon our abortive attempts.

The big,empty and abortive pollen grains are abserred at the stage of uninuclear microspore.

tendrils trifurcate, sometimes tip of lower tendril branch with vestiges of abortive inflorescences.

Real-world Examples

His eyes glanced momentarily at me and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh.

Source: The Great Gatsby (Original Version)

The Kremlin said Raisi expressed support for Russian leadership in connection with last Saturday's abortive Wagner Group mutiny.

Source: CRI Online June 2023 Collection

In all more than 80,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers were killed, many of them in the abortive Gallipoli Campaign.

Source: BBC Listening Collection November 2018

There was immediately a profound silence and abortive efforts were made to dissipate it.

Source: The Red and the Black (Part Three)

One of these virtuosi seemed to think that I might be an embryo, or abortive birth.

Source: Gulliver's Travels (Original Version)

He made a salutation, or, to speak nearer the truth, an ill-defined, abortive attempt at curtsy.

Source: Seven-angled Tower (Part 1)

There was an abortive movement of flagons toward mouths—stopped as the Duke remained with arm upraised.

Source: "Dune" audiobook

The same currents bore his grandson from an abortive academic career to national and eventually global fame as a broadcaster and popular-science writer.

Source: The Economist - Arts

WeWork revised its staff-entertainment policies after its party-loving founder and CEO, Adam Neumann, was forced out in the wake of its abortive IPO later that year.

Source: The Economist (Summary)

Yeah. I think so. I mean, you remember that back in February of 2019, there was an abortive summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Source: NPR News June 2020 Compilation

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