From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishaborta‧bort /əˈbɔːt $ -ɔːrt/ verb 1 [transitive]STOP something THAT IS HAPPENING to stop an activity because it would be difficult or dangerous to continue it The rescue mission had to be aborted.2 [transitive]STOP something THAT IS HAPPENING to deliberately end a pregnancy when the baby is still too young to live3 [intransitive]STOP HAPPENING if a pregnant woman or animal aborts, the baby is born too early and is dead when it is born SYN miscarry The disease causes pregnant animals to abort.→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
abort• Pietr only found out by accident, when she applied to have the child aborted.• The disease kills piglets and causes sows to abort.• When we fail to justly punish the criminal, the community sees justice aborted.• The mission was aborted after news came of the capture of the city.• The law allows women to abort an early-stage pregnancy.• The plane had already started its descent when the pilot received orders to abort his landing.• Would I abort if my child was likely to have some kind of deformity?• In addition, oxygen inhalations are given to abort the acute attacks.• Yet the mob somehow aborts the landing and pulls the plane up sensibly.• The plane aborted the takeoff and crashed into the water.Origin abort (1500-1600) Latin abortare, from abortus, past participle of aboriri “to give birth to a dead baby”, from ab- “away” + oriri “to rise, be born” 