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abstaining

verb

present participle of abstain
as in refusing

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for abstaining
  1. refusing
  2. rejecting
  3. turning down
  4. hesitating
  5. delaying
  6. declining
Verb
  • Kansas City finally slowed the Colts’ offense by refusing to give them the ball.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 21 Sep. 2026
  • Major carriers from large swaths of the state are now refusing to insure even low-risk properties with minimal danger of burning.
    — Paige St. John, Los Angeles Times, 20 Sep. 2026
Definition of refusing
Verb
  • The trend is less about rejecting smartphones and more about choosing which parts of them to keep.
    — Ashley Lynch, Miami Herald, 22 Sep. 2026
  • The trend is less about rejecting technology than deciding how much attention a phone deserves.
    — Ashley Lynch, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 22 Sep. 2026
Definition of rejecting
Verb
  • But for a sport the size of fencing, turning down attention is an unaffordable luxury.
    — Jacob Feldman, Sportico.com, 21 Sep. 2026
  • Closing the curtains tightly before bed and turning down the thermostat also help.
    — Jeanne Bonner, CNN Money, 3 Sep. 2026
Definition of turning down
Verb
  • But experts have worried that doctors are hesitating to offer treatment without an ironclad diagnosis, which clinicians say can take time and increase risks to the mother.
    — Andrea Suozzo, ProPublica, 9 Sep. 2026
  • Fertilizer is often bought months ahead of planting, so hesitating in the fall can mean less goes on the ground in the spring.
    — Jayash Paudel, The Conversation, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of hesitating
Verb
  • The fight, Haro said, is about more than extending a lease or delaying an eviction.
    — Laura Rodríguez Presa, Chicago Tribune, 26 Sep. 2026
  • Shrinking resources and the accompanying uncertainty is delaying medical research and threatening progress towards finding cures, the team behind Proposition 38 said.
    — Tarini Mehta, Sacbee.com, 25 Sep. 2026
Definition of delaying
Verb
  • Compared to the rapidly declining number of referrals from traditional search engines — which once numbered in the tens of millions — these AI clicks are a tiny drop in the bucket.
    — Joe Wilkins, Futurism, 24 Sep. 2026
  • North Central President Abiódún Gòkè-Paríolá said he was thrilled by the enrollment numbers, especially as colleges across the country are grappling with a declining high school graduate population.
    — Carolyn Stein, Chicago Tribune, 24 Sep. 2026
Definition of declining
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

abstain (from)
abstaining
abstaining (from)
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Cite this Entry

“Abstaining.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/abstaining. Accessed 27 Sep. 2026.

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