abstain

Other forms of abstain

past tense

abstained·

present participle

abstaining·

third person

abstains·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about abstain

What does abstain mean?

abstain means "refrain from voting". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in abstain?

abstain has 2 syllables: ab-stain. The stress falls on "stain". In IPA it is /əbˈsteɪn/.

What is another word for abstain?

Close synonyms include refrain, desist. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of abstain?

The recorded antonyms are consume.

Is abstain a common word?

abstain is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with abstain?

3 words rhyme with abstain. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.