a·bort / əˈbôrt/ • v. [tr.] 1. carry out or undergo the abortion of (a fetus). ∎  [intr.] (of a pregnant woman or female animal) have a miscarriage, with loss of the fetus. ∎  [intr.] Biol. (of an embryonic organ or organism) remain undeveloped; fail to mature.2. bring to a premature end because of a problem or fault: the pilot aborted his landing.• n. an act of aborting a flight, space mission, or other enterprise.

abort (of a process) To undergo or cause abnormal termination. Abortion may be a voluntary act by the process, which realizes that it cannot reach a successful conclusion, or may be brought about by the operating system, which intervenes because the process has failed to observe system constraints. Thus, computationally, the term has a rather similar meaning to its medical meaning of spontaneous or induced fetal death.

abort (ă-bort) vb.
1. to terminate a process or disease before its full course has been run.

2. to remove or expel an embryo or fetus from the uterus before it is capable of independent existence. See abortion.