ABRUPT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Abrupt

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/əbrˈəpt/ Listen

adjective

Abrupt adj.

Broken off; very steep, or craggy, as rocks, precipices, banks; precipitous; steep; as, abrupt places. "Tumbling through ricks abrupt,"

Without notice to prepare the mind for the event; sudden; hasty; unceremonious. "The cause of your abrupt departure."

Having sudden transitions from one subject to another; unconnected. "The abrupt style, which hath many breaches."

(Bot.) Suddenly terminating, as if cut off.

Synonyms: Sudden; unexpected; hasty; rough; curt; unceremonious; rugged; blunt; disconnected; broken.

noun

Abrupt n. An abrupt place. (Poetic) ""Over the vast abrupt.""

verb

Abrupt v. t. To tear off or asunder. (Obs.) "Till death abrupts them."

See images of 'Abrupt'

Etymology of 'Abrupt'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Abrupt" Quotes from Famous Books

... the city, not sparing the spur to my poor horse. A thousand projects flashed through my mind to rescue her. Arrived in the city, I hurried to the General's and ran into his room. He was walking up and down smoking his meerschaum. Seeing me he stopped, alarmed at my abrupt entrance. ...

— Marie • Alexander Pushkin

... which it had formed round it. The other mouth was lower, in the side of the same new-formed hill, and filled with such red hot liquid matter as we see in a glass-house furnace, which raged and wrought as the waves in the sea, causing a short abrupt noise, like what may be imagined from a sea of quicksilver dashing among uneven rocks. This stuff would sometimes spew over, and run down the convex side of the conical hill, and appearing at first red hot, it changed colour, and hardened as it cooled, shewing ...

— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... vacancy, her look lingered and deepened. She saw a most bronzed and hardy looking young man, tall and broad-shouldered, with gray eyes, wide apart under straight black brows, and black hair brushed straight back from a wide forehead. She saw a rugged nose, a likeable mouth, and an abrupt and aggressive chin, saved somehow from grimness by a deep cleft in the blunt end of it.... She thought he was a very stirring looking young man. Undoubtedly he was a very sudden young man—if he meant one ...

— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... hears only in the most up-country New England regions and among London small shopkeepers. The uttering of his vowel sounds taper end first greatly amused his customers in the Chesapeake regions, while their abrupt clipping of both vowels and liquids was equally curious to Perkins, who regarded all people outside of New England as natives to be treated with condescending kindness alike for Christian and for business reasons, and as people who were even liable ...

— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... not puzzle over the queerness of this abrupt question. She fell to searching her memory diligently for an answer. "I'm not sure, but I think they speak oftenest of how I never used to like anybody to take my hand and help me along, even when I was barely able to walk. ...

— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

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