Noun: abortive
| Singular | abortive |
| Plural | abortives |
Sample Sentences
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Naphthalin was praised by Rosbach as an abortive in typhoid fever; Kraemer in 1886, Wilcox in 1887, Sehwald in 1889 and Wolff of Philadelphia in 1891 confirmed Rosbach's observations. [1897 August 7, E. Viko, “On the Treatment of Typhoid Fever”, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, volume 29, number 6, Chicago, Ill., →DOI, page 274:]
Nouns inflected like abortive
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
First attested in 1382, with the meaning "causing stillbirth or miscarriage". From Middle English abortif, from Old French abortif, from Latin abortīvus (“causing abortion”), from aborior (“miscarry, disappear”), from ab (“amiss”) + orior (“appear, be born, arise”). See: Middle English Nouns '
abortif', Latin Nouns '
abortīvus'.