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# The BFD Word of the Day
- URL: https://goodoil.news/the-bfd-word-of-the-day-1389/
- Published: 2023-11-18T17:15:00.000Z
- Updated: 2023-09-14T18:21:13.000Z
- Author: David Theobald
- Tags: General, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-16 22:07

The word for today is…

abstain (verb):

1: to choose not to do or have something : to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice  
2:: to choose not to vote

Source : [Merriam -Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstain?ref=goodoil.news)

Etymology : If you abstain, you’re consciously, and usually with effort, choosing to hold back from doing something that you would like to do. Abstain traces back through Middle English and Anglo-French to the Latin verb abstinere, which combines the prefix ab- (“from, away, off”) with tenere, a Latin verb meaning “to hold.” (Spanish speakers might recognize tenere’s influence in the Spanish verb tener, meaning “to have, hold, or take.”) Tenere has many offspring in English; other descendants include contain, detain, maintain, obtain, pertain, retain, and sustain, as well as some words that don’t end in -tain, such as tenant and tenacious. Abstain, like many of its cousins, has been used by English speakers since at least the 14th century.

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