Abolition

How to spell abolition

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce abolition

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does abolition mean?

1. nounThe formal act of ending or doing away with a law, system, practice, or institution.

Abolition in a sentence

• The abolition of slavery transformed the economy of the region.

• Campaigners pushed for the abolition of the death penalty across the country.

Where does abolition come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin abolitio, meaning 'a removal' or 'an annulment', which was formed from the verb abolere, 'to do away with, destroy, or cause to die out'. That verb is usually traced to the prefix ab-, meaning 'away from', combined with a root tied to growth and nourishment, so the original sense was something like 'to stunt or arrest growth' and thus to make a thing cease to exist. English took the word in through French around the early 1500s, where it first referred broadly to the formal doing away with any law, custom, or institution. From the late 1700s it became overwhelmingly associated with the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery itself, the meaning most adults reach for today. A useful spelling reminder is that the noun keeps a single 'l', exactly as in the verb 'abolish', so there is no doubling despite the temptation.

How the word is built

• abol- (from Latin abolere: to do away with, destroy)
• -ition (noun-forming suffix denoting the act or process)