Library / English Dictionary

FORSAKE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected forms: forsaken    , forsook   

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the lurch

Example:

The mother deserted her children

Synonyms:

abandon; desert; desolate; forsake

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "forsake" is one way to...):

leave (go and leave behind, either intentionally or by neglect or forgetfulness)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "forsake"):

expose (abandon by leaving out in the open air)

walk out (leave suddenly, often as an expression of disapproval)

ditch (forsake)

maroon; strand (leave stranded or isolated with little hope of rescue)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Sam cannot forsake Sue

Derivation:

forsaking (the act of forsaking)

Credits

 Context examples: 

He approved of the tradition mentioned by the honourable member who spoke before, and affirmed, that the two Yahoos said to be seen first among them, had been driven thither over the sea; that coming to land, and being forsaken by their companions, they retired to the mountains, and degenerating by degrees, became in process of time much more savage than those of their own species in the country whence these two originals came.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

She returned just in time to join the others as they quitted the house, on an excursion through its more immediate premises; and the rest of the morning was easily whiled away, in lounging round the kitchen garden, examining the bloom upon its walls, and listening to the gardener's lamentations upon blights, in dawdling through the green-house, where the loss of her favourite plants, unwarily exposed, and nipped by the lingering frost, raised the laughter of Charlotte,—and in visiting her poultry-yard, where, in the disappointed hopes of her dairy-maid, by hens forsaking their nests, or being stolen by a fox, or in the rapid decrease of a promising young brood, she found fresh sources of merriment.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Grey Beaver had betrayed and forsaken him, but that had no effect upon him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

"Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes," I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Thus the unhappy traveller was again forsaken and forlorn; but she took heart and said, “As far as the wind blows, and so long as the cock crows, I will journey on, till I find him once again.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

His feelings are for ever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

From time to time I forsook my own thoughts to follow him, and I followed in amaze, mastered for the moment by his remarkable intellect, under the spell of his passion, for he was preaching the passion of revolt.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

That the said Quinbus Flestrin, having brought the imperial fleet of Blefuscu into the royal port, and being afterwards commanded by his imperial majesty to seize all the other ships of the said empire of Blefuscu, and reduce that empire to a province, to be governed by a viceroy from hence, and to destroy and put to death, not only all the Big-endian exiles, but likewise all the people of that empire who would not immediately forsake the Big-endian heresy, he, the said Flestrin, like a false traitor against his most auspicious, serene, imperial majesty, did petition to be excused from the said service, upon pretence of unwillingness to force the consciences, or destroy the liberties and lives of an innocent people.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A few of the boldest and wisest forsook the fires of the gods, which had now become a shambles, and fled into the forest, where, in the end, they starved to death or were eaten by wolves.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Won't she feel forsaken and deserted?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)