What's the difference between abjure and abstain?

Abjure


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To renounce or reject with solemnity; to recant; to abandon forever; to reject; repudiate; as, to abjure errors.
  • (v. t.) To renounce upon oath; to forswear; to disavow; as, to abjure allegiance to a prince. To abjure the realm, is to swear to abandon it forever.
  • (v. i.) To renounce on oath.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Surely the great strength of Shakespeare is precisely that he abjures cognitive or philosophical thinking in favour of a Wittgensteinian showing.
  • (2) The renewed debate on the nation’s constitutional future has led to some laughable abjurations from both sides.
  • (3) If modern Germany is more at ease abjuring the power and responsibilities of leadership in favour of a quiet, comfortable life, the frictions and misunderstandings making the European crisis worse are rooted in other psychological and cultural factors.
  • (4) It is the coital position favoured by informed liberals everywhere and abjured by all free Presbyterians for fear it may lead to dancing.
  • (5) If the talks succeed, Wilders will be in the enviable position of wielding power while abjuring responsibility.
  • (6) In it, he shows Galileo querying the existing cosmic order and being forced to abjure his theories under threat of torture.
  • (7) His decision to abjure the splendour of the apostolic palace in favour of the modest Casa Santa Marta guesthouse has offered proof of his personal commitment to a humbler church, while his tender embracing of Vinicio Riva, a man terribly disfigured by tumours , underlined his hands-on pastoral approach.
  • (8) Kafka was slim and underweight throughout his life and showed an ascetic attitude and abjuration of physical enjoyment and pleasure (fasting, vegetarianism, sexual abstinence, emphasis on physical fitness).
  • (9) In return for his solemnly abjuring all further claims on Israel, Israel would acquiesce in the emergence of a Palestine state.
  • (10) Pope Francis led the Jesuits through Argentina's dirty war and has consistently abjured the trappings of office while Welby, who began his professional life in the oil business, has worked as a peace negotiator in some of the most dangerous places in the world .
  • (11) Not only did he abjure the cardinal's residence in the Argentinian capital for a small apartment and reject a chauffeur-driven car to travel by bus, he also told hundreds of Argentinians not to waste their money on plane tickets to Rome to see him created a cardinal by John Paul II in 2001, urging them to give it instead to the poor.
  • (12) According to European officials briefed on today's talks in Moscow with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the Russians are insisting on an end to 15 years of Georgian troops being part of the peacekeeping contingent in breakaway South Ossetia and are demanding that Saakashvili sign a legally binding pledge abjuring the use of all armed force in relation to the two pro-Russian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
  • (13) They have no possessive pronouns (not “you can borrow my handkerchief”, but “you can share the handkerchief I use”) and abjure possessive sexuality.
  • (14) The "newness" in each of these senses should abjure the capital "N" that has now run its course.
  • (15) Treatment of symptoms and improving the quality of life is imperative, yet many physicians abjure intervention, for reasons which are not entirely clear.
  • (16) Since 2001, BNP’s abjuring of any allegiance to such an ideal has been devastating.
  • (17) I'm still not vegetarian, but the older I get, the less defensible this state becomes – and not just because it's an implied term in my Guardian contract that I must abjure not only at least seven-eighths of any joy that comes my way in life but also any meat that isn't certified organic Norfolk roadkill or the cow in Douglas Adams' restaurant at the end of the universe .
  • (18) As to Havel's "idealism" – if that is what one must call serious ecological concern, an abjuring of narrow nationalism and materialism, and an eye on what the market's "hidden hand" is actually up to or capable of – he left us with some reason, in these dangerous early years of the new millennium, to think that the "realist" critique of such preoccupations was itself anachronistic.
  • (19) It abjures the nationalism and militarism that archaic phrase implies.
  • (20) Whenever I hear Iain Duncan Smith pontificating about the need for the unemployed to show initiative and find themselves jobs, I think of the fortunate frog urging the tadpoles to abjure welfare dependency.

Abstain


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To hold one's self aloof; to forbear or refrain voluntarily, and especially from an indulgence of the passions or appetites; -- with from.
  • (v. t.) To hinder; to withhold.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Also critical to Mr Smith's victory was the decision over lunch of the MSF technical union's delegation to abstain on the rule changes.
  • (2) Abstainer rates in the total population controlled for treatment decreased with increasing WPY (P less than 0.005).
  • (3) The adjusted odds ratio of having one or more hospitalization for current drinkers relative to life-long abstainers in females was 0.67 (95 per cent confidence interval 0.57-0.79) and in males was 0.74 (0.57-0.96).
  • (4) Britain and France formally announced this week they would abstain, along with Portugal and Bosnia.
  • (5) Although close to 50% of this sample were abstainers, 11% of the drinkers were found to be heavy drinkers, averaging more than two drinks daily, while 18% were high-maximum drinkers, consuming at least five drinks on an occasion prior to pregnancy.
  • (6) Compared to abstainers, the heaviest drinkers had the highest systolic (JM, p = 0.001; WM, p less than 0.01) and diastolic (JM, p less than 0.002; WM, p less than 0.05) blood pressures.
  • (7) The Labour leadership is understood to be pressing for its MPs to abstain on the grounds that the party’s policy is under review and the real vote on Trident will come in the decisive “main gate” decision on renewal next year.
  • (8) But the prime minister failed to win the support of more than half of his 303 MPs after 136 Tories rejected the measure and around 40 Tory MPs either did not vote or actively abstained.
  • (9) 36% of the group had abstained from further drug taking, 27% were taking them periodically, 32% had to be treated again and 5% had deteriorated (trend towards invalidism).
  • (10) Their occurrence rules out any organic involvement almost with certainty, and allows abstaining from additional examinations, or keeping them within minimum limits.
  • (11) They all abstain from social media for fear of getting embroiled in some brouhaha.
  • (12) Heidi Allen, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, abstained in last week’s vote but said she and others would defy the party whip if concessions were not offered.
  • (13) Fourteen months later, 41 subjects (41%) were classified as resumers; 62 (59%) were abstainers.
  • (14) This finding indicates that many young people exaggerate the risk of losing status among their peers because they abstain from drinking.
  • (15) At their explosive 80-minute meeting, the union's delegates - who hold 4.5 per cent of the vote - voted by 19-17 to abstain because the OMOV rule change included a further measure promoting more women MPs, one of the union's longstanding causes.
  • (16) All subjects had been instructed to abstain from smoking for at least 10 h before and during the examination.
  • (17) The CDC and other health agencies have been operating for months on the assumption that Zika causes brain defects, and they have been warning pregnant women to use mosquito repellent, avoid travel to Zika-stricken regions and either abstain from sex or rely on condoms.
  • (18) On same-sex marriage, Leadsom said she supported partnerships between gay couples but had reservations about the legislation that led her to abstain during the parliamentary vote.
  • (19) The salivary cotinine concentration after 1 week in 60 abstainers was 183 ng.ml-1.
  • (20) Never smoking abstainers die at about the same rate as never smoking moderate drinkers.