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Abscond   Listen
verb
Abscond  v. i.  (past & past part. absconded; pres. part. absconding)  
1.
To hide, withdraw, or be concealed. "The marmot absconds all winter."
2.
To depart clandestinely; to steal off and secrete one's self; used especially of persons who withdraw to avoid a legal process; as, an absconding debtor. "That very homesickness which, in regular armies, drives so many recruits to abscond."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Abscond" Quotes from Famous Books



... 10th of July, a division of the banditti proceeded to George Town, and seizing upon the government boats, induced five of the working people to abscond with them; upon representation whereof to the Lieutenant-Governor, a proclamation was issued requiring the return of those persons, under the assurance of forgiveness, if so returning within twenty days, from ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... system of emancipation, it would exercise a salutary influence upon our negro population, by rendering more secure the fidelity of those who become soldiers, and diminishing the inducements to the rest to abscond. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... her. Too terrific was the vengeance that awaited an abettor of any fugitive nun; but, above all, if such a crime were perpetrated by an official mandatory of the church. Yet, again, so far it was the more hazardous course to abscond, that it almost revealed her to the young Don as the missing daughter. Still, if it really had that effect, nothing at present obliged him to pursue her, as might have been the case a few weeks later. Kate argued (I dare say) rightly, as she always did. Her ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... stagger the Doctor himself, by reminding him of Leonard's violent temper, and the cause Henry had to remember his promptness of hand; but that Ethel's pupil, Aubrey's friend, the boy of ingenuous face, could under any provocation strike helpless old age, or, having struck, could abscond without calling aid, actuated by terror, not by pity or repentance, was more than Dr. May could believe, and after brief musing, he broke out in ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... off entirely, was he? Gentlemen, I am sorry to find that my Lord Cochrane, filling the high situation that he does, sees nothing wrong in assisting a person within the rules of the King's Bench to abscond, for whose stay within those rules sureties have entered into a bond; either Lord Cochrane's mind has confounded all right and wrong, or what is more probable, he confesses this smaller delinquency to conceal the greater, for I say he would ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... trifling offences, or none at all, their continued liability to all kinds of ill usage, without a chance of redress, and the agonizing feelings they endure at being separated from the dearest connections, drive many of them to desperation, and they abscond. They hide themselves in the woods, where they remain for months, and, in some cases, for years. When caught, they are flogged with extreme severity, their backs are pickled, and the flogging repeated as before described: after months of this torture, ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy

... danger in that dog's nose. Thus Wagtail became a very important member of the family,—a bond of union, in fact, between its parts. Theo's disappearances, however, became less and less frequent,—not that she made fewer attempts to abscond, but that, every one knowing how likely she was to vanish, whoever she was with had come to feel the necessity of keeping ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... harlot will but gladden in my tears! "But ere she here arrives, it me behoves "Each effort to employ, while time now serves, "To hinder what he seeks; whilst yet my couch "Another presses not. Shall I complain, "Or rest in silence? Shall I Calydon "Re-seek, or here remain? Shall I abscond "His habitation, or, if nought else serves, "Strenuous oppose him? Or if truly bent, "O, Meleager! with a sister's pride, "Thy wicked deeds t' outvie, a witness leave, "The harlot's throat divided, what the rage "Of woman may accomplish, when so wrong'd."— In whirls her agitated ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... Run off with me, as the Red Reiver and all these nice, interesting sort of people used to do long ago. Let us abscond, and not tell a single living soul, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... for damages, for all damages sustained, against any one of the culprits, each one of whom, in the event of his making good the whole loss, has recourse against the others for their share of the obligation. It may happen, and does, that one or several abscond, and thus shirk their part of the obligation; the burden of restitution may thus be unevenly distributed. But this is one of the risks that conspirators in sin must take; the injured party must be protected first and in preference to ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... the gentleman known as No. 5 was looked upon as a suspicious character; and how Pierre the waiter had been set to watch the door of No. 8, who had spent three months in the house without paying a sou, and was daily suspected of attempting to abscond. All these, and a dozen similar stories, and half the gossip of the town, would come buzzing round Madelon's ears as she sat gravely balancing one card one the top of the other. She heard and comprehended them with such comprehension as was in her; and no doubt they modified in some degree ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... American Republics, so called; or those as a class, in our own country, who can neither read nor write; or those who can read and write, and who possess talents and an education by force of which they get treasury, or post-office, or bank appointments, and then abscond with all the money they can steal, I answer unhesitatingly that man, or rather such men, are not fit ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... himself [14] in the unsearchable chambers of light,—of light which at noonday, more effectually than any gloom, conceals the very brightest stars,—rather than in labyrinths of darkness the thickest. What criminal is that who wishes to abscond from public justice? Let him hurry into the frantic publicities of London, and by no means into the quiet privacies of the country. So, and upon the analogy of these cases, we may understand that, to make ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... Company,' owner of the slain war-horse; and has to be smuggled off by Versailles Captains. Or rusty firelocks belch after him, shivering asunder his—hat. In the end, by superior Order, the Bodyguards, all but the few on immediate duty, disappear; or as it were abscond; and march, under cloud of night, to Rambouillet. (Weber, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... over me with a jump. It was too good to be true. Had Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen arrived at Asquith and created a sensation with the man who stole his name I should have been amply satisfied. But that Mr. Allen had been obliging enough to abscond with a large sum of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... to the Vali," he continues, "you would have been now in the hands of the police, and to-morrow on your way to Constantinople. But I shall not deliver it until you are safe out of the City. And you must fly or abscond to-day, because I can not ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... request of a gentleman present, one of the passengers was compelled, instead of flying, as he had intended, with bag and baggage to Hungary, to return to Vienna in company of the police. It appeared he owed the gentleman 1300 florins, and had wished to abscond, but was luckily overtaken before the departure of the boat. This affair was hardly concluded when the bell rang, the wheels began to revolve, and too soon, alas, my dear ones ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... that several dead men in and about this city do keep out of the way and abscond, for fear of being buried; and being willing to respite their interment, in consideration of their families, and in hopes of their amendment, I shall allow them certain privileged places, where they may appear ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... If the slave abscond, the sheriff may offer a reward not exceeding one-fifth of the value of the slave. Laws of North Carolina, 1816, ch. xii. p. 9; Laws of North Carolina (revision ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... into it, with the intention of stealing upon him as he sat most mysteriously chattering on the top of a cairn of stones, and then shooting him with silver, which is known never to fail in finishing the imps of the Evil One. And lucky indeed was it for pug that he chanced, through whim, to abscond from that quarter; for if he had not so disappeared, he might have died by the lead, if not by the silver. As it was, the bold peasant laid claim to the full glory of compelling this dreaded ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... by a Spanish Captain altogether unworthy of the Name of Christian. He might indeed probably expect to meet with a convenient time and opportunity of revenging this Ingominy so unjuriously thrown upon him by preparing Military Forces to attaque him, but he rather chose to abscond in the Province De los Ciquayos (wherein a Puissant Vassal and subject of his Ruled) devested of his Estate and Kingdom, and there live and dye an exile. But the Spaniards receiving certain information, that he had absented himself, connived no longer at his Concealment but raised ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... you for?" He was making light of her now, his question accompanied by a hard, cynical look which told her that she could say as much or as little as she chose and he'd suit himself in the extent of his credulity. "Were you the lovely cashier in an ice cream store? And did you abscond with a dollar ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... "To abscond would not secure me, as most of my remaining property is vested in real estate. And even if it would, I could not consent to it: I could not consent to banish myself from my country; to flee like a felon; to skulk from society with the base view of defrauding ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... concerned, Henderson was the only man that fled who had not been seen in connection with the fray and the tumult. If he was not the man of the turret, and if Andrew Ruthven, who also had ridden to Falkland, did not abscond, ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... more than that, and endeavored to collect on three dogs—one license for each head. This the State declined to pay, and out of this grew further complications of a distressing nature. The city sent its dog-catchers up to abscond with the dog, intending to cut off two of its heads, and return the balance as being as much of the beast as the State was entitled to maintain on a single license. It was an unfortunate move, for when ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs

... go now," says Daisy, giving him a last ungrateful push; and as in a body they abscond, he finds himself depressed, but free. Not only free, but alone. This brings him back to thoughts of Molly. How long she is! Women never do know what time means. He will walk round to the yard and amuse himself with the dogs until she has finished ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... serious mischief to intend, But just to show my powers of pleasing In flattery, badinage, and teasing; But should she, for young girls, poor things! Are tender as yon insect's wings— Should she mistake me, and grow fond, Why, I'll grow serious—and abscond." ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... calves, or in country ponies. They also purchase from Gaoli herdsmen barren buffaloes, which they profess to be able to make fertile; if successful they return them for double the purchase-money, but if not, having obtained if possible some earnest-money, they abscond and sell the animals at a distance. [190] Like the Bhamtas, the Mang-Garoris, Major Gunthorpe states, make it a rule not to give a girl in marriage until the intended husband has proved himself an efficient thief. Mr. Gayer [191] writes as follows of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... knew what it meant,—that Rose had half forgotten the cat, and had meant wholly to forget it, but since she had been snapped up, so to speak, in the very act of forgetting, she would dole it out a piece or two of the meat that she had meant to abscond with as soon as ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... with what precision and clearness her agitation allowed her, related the whole history of her taking up the money of the Jew for Mr Harrel, and told, without reserve, the reason of her trying to abscond from his father at Mrs Belfield's. Delvile listened to her account with almost an agony of attention, now admiring her conduct; now resenting her ill usage; now compassionating her losses; but though variously moved ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)



Words linked to "Abscond" :   flee, run off, go off, absconder, abscondment, fly, levant, make off, take flight, decamp



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