John Milton
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We’re sorry to say you must cast your eyes down to fully understand abject: in Middle English the word described those lowly ones who are rejected and cast out. By the 15th century, it was applied as it still is today to anything that has sunk to, or exists in, a low state or condition; in modern use it often comes before the words poverty, misery, and failure. Applied to words like surrender and apology, it connotes hopelessness and humility. The word’s Latin source is the verb abicere, meaning “to throw away, throw down, overcome, or abandon.” Like reject, its ultimate root is the Latin verb jacere, meaning “to throw.” Subject is also from jacere, and we’ll leave you with that word as a way to change the subject.
Examples of abject in a Sentence
Katherine Anne Porter, The Never-Ending Wrong, 1977
… my critical intelligence sometimes shrivels to an abject nodding of the head.
—Lewis H. Lapham, Harper's, May 1971
… nothing seemed to have changed at the Beehive across the years. The same pallid employees were visible in the same abject state of peonage, cringing under the whiplash of overseers.
—S. J. Perelman, Baby, It's Cold Inside, 1970
They live in abject misery.
He offered an abject apology.
She thought he was an abject coward.
Matt Fleming, Oc Register, 13 July 2025
But Zuckerberg isn’t the only one paying abject obeisance to the president.
—Max Taves, Mercury News, 11 July 2025
But Israel’s horrific death toll in Gaza, the abject suffering unfolding on our screens, has brought us to a fundamentally different place.
—Albert Fox Cahn, New York Daily News, 1 July 2025
Meanwhile, the pissy, frustrated lawman (Kenneth Tobey) trying to coordinate the manhunt has to deal with abject incompetence and mind-boggling bureaucracy, as well as his own desire to relive his youth.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 27 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for abject
Cite this Entry
“Abject.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abject. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025.
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