abrupt
verb
- to break off/sever/interrupt suddenly/curtail
adjective
- short, rude
- sudden
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /əˈbɹʌpt/ / /æbˈɹʌpt/
adj
Etymology: First attested in 1583. Borrowed from Latin abruptus (“broken off”), perfect passive participle of abrumpō (“break off”), formed from ab (“from, away from”) + rumpō (“to break”).
- Broken away (from restraint).
- Without notice to prepare the mind for the event; sudden; hasty; unceremonious.
“The party came to an abrupt end when the parents of our host arrived.”
“The cause of your abrupt departure.”
- Curt in manner.
“With no great disparity between them in point of years, they were, in every other respect, as unlike and far removed from each other as two men could well be. The one was soft-spoken, delicately made, precise, and elegant; the other, a burly square-built man, negligently dressed, rough and abrupt in manner, stern, and, in his present mood, forbidding both in look and speech.”
- Having sudden transitions from one subject or state to another; unconnected; disjointed.
“The abrupt style, which hath many breaches.”
- Broken off.
- Extremely steep or craggy as if broken up; precipitous.
“The mazy-running brook Forms a deep pool; this bank abrupt and high.”
“To the north the towering scree-strewn slopes of Saddleback begin to draw nearer as we start the abrupt descent towards Keswick.”
- Suddenly terminating, as if cut off; truncate.
“Root oblong, blackish, nearly the thickness of the little finger, often growing obliquely; abrupt at the lower end, so as to appear as if bitten off, furnished with long whitish fibres.”
noun
Etymology: First attested in 1583. Borrowed from Latin abruptus (“broken off”), perfect passive participle of abrumpō (“break off”), formed from ab (“from, away from”) + rumpō (“to break”).
- Something which is abrupt; an abyss.
“Over the vast abrupt.”
verb
Etymology: First attested in 1583. Borrowed from Latin abruptus (“broken off”), perfect passive participle of abrumpō (“break off”), formed from ab (“from, away from”) + rumpō (“to break”).
- To tear off or asunder.
“Till death abrupts them.”
- To interrupt suddenly.