Word.ws English Dictionary

abrupt

/əˈbɹʌpt/

abrupt adjective: broken away (from restraint).

Adjective

abrupt (comparative more abrupt or abrupter, superlative most abrupt or abruptest)

  1. (obsolete, rare) Broken away (from restraint).
  2. Without notice to prepare the mind for the event; sudden; hasty; unceremonious.
    • The party came to an abrupt end when the parents of our host arrived.
    • The cause of your abrupt departure.1592, William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part I, II-iii
  3. Curt in manner.
    • With no great disparity between them in point of years, they were, in every other respect, as unlike and far removed from each other as two men could well be. The one was soft-spoken, delicately made, precise, and elegant; the other, a burly square-built man, negligently dressed, rough and abrupt...1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge. Chapter 12.”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 301
  4. Having sudden transitions from one subject or state to another; unconnected; disjointed.
    • The abrupt style, which hath many breaches.1641, Ben Jonson, Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter
  5. (obsolete) Broken off.
  6. Extremely steep or craggy as if broken up; precipitous.
    • The mazy-running brook
      Forms a deep pool; this bank abrupt and high.a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC
    • To the north the towering scree-strewn slopes of Saddleback begin to draw nearer as we start the abrupt descent towards Keswick.1961 October, ""Voyageur"", “The Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway”, in Trains Illustrated, page 601
    Synonyms:
    broken, rough, rugged
  7. Suddenly terminating, as if cut off; truncate.
    • Root oblong, blackish, nearly the thickness of the little finger, often growing obliquely; abrupt at the lower end, so as to appear as if bitten off, furnished with long whitish fibres.1839, William Baxter, British Phænogamous Botany, →OCLC

Verb

abrupt (third-person singular simple present abrupts, present participle abrupting, simple past and past participle abrupted)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To tear off or asunder.
    • Till death abrupts them.1642, [Thomas Browne], “(please specify the page)”, in Religio Medici, London: […] Andrew Crooke, →OCLC
  2. To interrupt suddenly.

Noun

abrupt (plural abrupts)

  1. (poetic) Something which is abrupt; an abyss.
    • Over the vast abrupt.1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...

abrupt meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

abrupt in Hindi

आकस्मिक और अप्रत्याशित, रूखा और अमैत्रीपूर्ण, अक्खड़, अशिष्ट, असभ्य, असम्बद्ध

abrupt in Tamil

திடீரென்று, சட்டென, சடுதியாக, செங்குத்தான, வெடுக்கென்ற, மரியாதையற்ற

abrupt in Urdu

abrupt, ferly, prorupt, unexpected
اچانک acānak

abrupt in Bengali

আকস্মিক, অমসৃণ
More languagesFewer languages
abrupt in Telugu
అకస్మాత్తుగా akasmāttugā
abrupt in Malayalam
പെട്ടെന്നുള്ള, ആകസ്മികമായ, തിടുക്കത്തിലുള്ള, ഓർക്കാപ്പുറത്തുള്ള
abrupt in Kannada
ಥಟಕ್ಕನೆ, ಏಕಾಏಕಿಯಾದ
abrupt in Arabic
مُبَاغِت mubāḡit, مُفَاجِئ mufājiʔ

Examples of abrupt in a sentence

  • There was something in this abrupt allusion to the treasured and hidden past, that at once shocked and silenced Norbourne.1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Success”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC...
  • 'Is it a slickstone?' she asks, and Maren snorts, an abrupt sound, bringing her hand up to her mouth.2020 January 28, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, The Mercies, →ISBN, page 130:

All 35 example sentences with abrupt

Synonyms of abrupt

3 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of abrupt

Forms of abrupt

Adjective
comparativemore abrupt
comparativeabrupter
superlativemost abrupt
superlativeabruptest
Verb
third-person singular presentabrupts
present participleabrupting
past participleabrupted
pastabrupted
Noun
pluralabrupts

Origin of abrupt

First attested in 1583. Borrowed from Latin abruptus (“broken off”), perfect passive participle of abrumpō (“break off”), formed from ab (“from, away from”) + rumpō (“to break”).

Words formed from abrupt

Words that rhyme with abrupt

Questions about abrupt

What does abrupt mean?
Abrupt means broken away (from restraint).
What is abrupt in Hindi?
Abrupt in Hindi is आकस्मिक और अप्रत्याशित, रूखा और अमैत्रीपूर्ण, अक्खड़. See Abrupt meaning in Hindi.
How do you use abrupt in a sentence?
There was something in this abrupt allusion to the treasured and hidden past, that at once shocked and silenced Norbourne.
What part of speech is abrupt?
Abrupt can be an adjective, a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce abrupt?
Abrupt is pronounced /əˈbɹʌpt/ (US).

Words near abrupt in the dictionary

  1. ABRs
  2. ABRSM
  3. Abrud
  4. Abrudan
  5. Abruka
  6. abrupt
  7. abrupt appearance
  8. abrupt appearance theory
  9. abrupted
  10. abruptedly
  11. abrupter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: abrupt (page history and authors); abrupt (Hindi Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abrupt (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); اچانک (Urdu) (page history and authors); abrupt (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abrupt (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); abrupt (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-abrupt.ogg.

Cite this entry: “abrupt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abrupt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.