DESERTION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does desertion mean? 

• DESERTION (noun)
  The noun DESERTION has 2 senses:

1. withdrawing support or help despite allegiance or responsibility

2. the act of giving something up

  Familiarity information: DESERTION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DESERTION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Withdrawing support or help despite allegiance or responsibility

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

abandonment; defection; desertion

Context example:

his abandonment of his wife and children left them penniless

Hypernyms ("desertion" is a kind of...):

withdrawal (the act of withdrawing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "desertion"):

abscondment; decampment (the act of running away secretly (as to avoid arrest))

absence without leave; unauthorized absence (unauthorized military absence)

deviationism (ideological defection from the party line (especially from orthodox communism))

Derivation:

desert (leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the lurch)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The act of giving something up

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

abandonment; desertion; forsaking

Hypernyms ("desertion" is a kind of...):

rejection (the act of rejecting something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "desertion"):

exposure (abandoning without shelter or protection (as by leaving an infant out in the open))

apostasy; tergiversation (the act of abandoning a party for cause)

bolt (a sudden abandonment (as from a political party))

Derivation:

desert (desert (a cause, a country or an army), often in order to join the opposing cause, country, or army)

 Context examples 

These poor lads have chosen me cap'n, after your desertion, sir—laying a particular emphasis upon the word desertion.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Mrs. Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham's desertion, and complimented her on bearing it so well.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“Well, I forgive you for your desertion, Ambrose,” said my uncle; “and,” he added, “I should be vastly obliged to you if you would re-arrange my tie.”

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She did not want exposure to be added to desertion.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I thought also of my father and surviving brother; should I by my base desertion leave them exposed and unprotected to the malice of the fiend whom I had let loose among them?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I replied—There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with strangers.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She felt the loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart; his seduction and desertion of Miss Williams, the misery of that poor girl, and the doubt of what his designs might ONCE have been on herself, preyed altogether so much on her spirits, that she could not bring herself to speak of what she felt even to Elinor; and, brooding over her sorrows in silence, gave more pain to her sister than could have been communicated by the most open and most frequent confession of them.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

We knew she carried fourteen boats to our five (we were one short through the desertion of Wainwright), and she began dropping them far to leeward of our last boat, continued dropping them athwart our course, and finished dropping them far to windward of our first weather boat.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I had now plenty of water and good things to eat, and my conscience, which had smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted by the great conquest I had made.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)