as in unsuccessful
producing no results
an abortive attempt to recover the sunken pirate ship
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Examples of abortive in a Sentence
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As China has repeatedly made clear as far back as former President Donald Trump’s abortive attempt to force a TikTok sale, that divestiture isn’t going to happen—Beijing would block any sale.
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David Meyer, Fortune, 6 Mar. 2024
His stoking of culture wars pleased the GOP base but sometimes fizzled as policy, such as abortive efforts to create a tip line for parents to complain about teachers and principals and a rewrite of state history standards that was widely criticized as racially insensitive and inaccurate.
—Gregory S. Schneider, Washington Post, 28 Mar. 2024
After Shogun went through years of abortive efforts to get into production at FX, husband and wife Justin Marks (Top Gun: Maverick) and Rachel Kondo (previously a fiction writer) boarded the project in 2018 as the new co-creators and executive producers, spearheading a whole new set of scripts.
—Patrick Brzeski, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Mar. 2024
In what appears to be a dream, a creepy-crawly form is seen moving under the skin of Jakub’s face, its pedipalps first making an abortive attempt to exit via his nostrils before a sizeable spider emerges from his mouth.
—David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for abortive 
David Meyer, Fortune, 6 Mar. 2024
His stoking of culture wars pleased the GOP base but sometimes fizzled as policy, such as abortive efforts to create a tip line for parents to complain about teachers and principals and a rewrite of state history standards that was widely criticized as racially insensitive and inaccurate.
—Gregory S. Schneider, Washington Post, 28 Mar. 2024
After Shogun went through years of abortive efforts to get into production at FX, husband and wife Justin Marks (Top Gun: Maverick) and Rachel Kondo (previously a fiction writer) boarded the project in 2018 as the new co-creators and executive producers, spearheading a whole new set of scripts.
—Patrick Brzeski, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Mar. 2024
In what appears to be a dream, a creepy-crawly form is seen moving under the skin of Jakub’s face, its pedipalps first making an abortive attempt to exit via his nostrils before a sizeable spider emerges from his mouth.
—David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for abortive
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'abortive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Abortive.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/abortive. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.
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