forsake

verb

Etymology: From Middle English forsaken (“to abandon, desert, repudiate, withdraw allegiance from”), from Old English forsacan (“to oppose; to give up, renounce; to decline, refuse”), from Proto-West Germanic *frasakan (“to forsake, renounce”). By surface analysis, for- + sake. Cognates include Saterland Frisian ferseeke (“to deny, refuse”), West Frisian fersaakje, Dutch verzaken (“to renounce, forsake”), Middle High German versachen (“to deny”), Danish forsage (“to give up”), Swedish försaka (“to be without, give up”), Norwegian forsake (“to give up, renounce”), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌺𐌰𐌽 (sakan, “to quarrel; to rebuke”), .

1. To abandon, to give up, to leave (permanently), to renounce (someone or something).

   “Doeſt thou forſake the deuill and all his workes? / Aunſwere. I forſake them.”

   “Such hazard now muſt doting Tarqvin make, / Pawning his honor to obtaine his luſt, / And for himſelfe, himſelfe he muſt forſake.”

2. To decline or refuse (something offered).

   “The youthful Bull muſt wander in the Wood; / Behind the Mountain, or beyond the Flood: / [...] / With two fair Eyes his Miſtreſs burns his Breaſt; / He looks and languiſhes, and leaves his Reſt; / Forſakes his Food, and pining for the Laſs, / Is joyleſs of the Grove, and ſpurns the growing Graſs.”

3. To avoid or shun (someone or something).

   “This was that Pascall lambe [i.e., Jesus] whose loue for vs so stood, / That on the mount of Caluerie, for vs did shed his blood: / Where hanging on the Crosse, no shame he did forsake, / Till death giuen him by pearcing speare, an ende of life did make.”

4. To cause disappointment to; to be insufficient for (someone or something).

   “Theſe birds, on the continent of America, continue to flutter the year round; as their food, which is the honey of flowers, never forſakes them in thoſe warm latitudes where they are found.”