FORSAKING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does forsaking mean? 

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

1. the act of forsaking

2. the act of giving something up

  Familiarity information: FORSAKING used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FORSAKING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of forsaking

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

forsaking; giving up

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

forgoing; forswearing; renunciation (the act of renouncing; sacrificing or giving up or surrendering (a possession or right or title or privilege etc.))

Derivation:

forsake (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 ("forsaking" is a kind of...):

rejection (the act of rejecting something)

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

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))

 Context examples 

Saturn will demand you be realistic and focus strongly on the tasks at hand, forsaking other activities for the lion’s share of the month.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She returned just in time to join the others as they quitted the house, on an excursion through its more immediate premises; and the rest of the morning was easily whiled away, in lounging round the kitchen garden, examining the bloom upon its walls, and listening to the gardener's lamentations upon blights, in dawdling through the green-house, where the loss of her favourite plants, unwarily exposed, and nipped by the lingering frost, raised the laughter of Charlotte,—and in visiting her poultry-yard, where, in the disappointed hopes of her dairy-maid, by hens forsaking their nests, or being stolen by a fox, or in the rapid decrease of a promising young brood, she found fresh sources of merriment.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)