abeyance

English
WOTD – 16 June 2012

Etymology

First attested in 1528. From Anglo-Norman abeiance (“legal expectation”), from Old French abeance (“desire”) from abeër (“to gape at, aspire after”), abaer, abair (“to desire”), from a (“to”) + baër (“to gape”),[1] bair (“yawn”), from Medieval Latin batō (“to yawn”)[2][3].

Pronunciation
  • (US) IPA(key): /əˈbeɪ.ənts/, /əˈbeɪ.əns/

Noun

abeyance (countable and uncountable, plural abeyances)

  1. (law) Expectancy; condition of ownership of real property being undetermined; lapse in succession of ownership of estate, or title. [Late 16th century][4]
    The proceeds of the estate shall be held in abeyance in an escrow account until the minor reaches age twenty-one.
    • 1765, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England:
      Yet sometimes the fee may be in abeyance, that is (as the word signifies) in expectation, remembrance, and contemplation in law; there being no person in esse, in whom it can vest and abide […]
  2. Suspension; temporary suppression; dormant condition. [Mid 17th century][4]
    • 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, published 2003, page 376:
      Without a plausible explanation for what might have provoked an ice age, the whole theory fell into abeyance.
  3. (heraldry) Expectancy of a title, its right in existence but its exercise suspended.
    The broad pennant of a commodore first class has been in abeyance since 1958, together with the rank.

Translations
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Translations to be checked

References
  1. “abeyance” in William Morris, editor, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, New York, N.Y.: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1971 [1969], OCLC 299754516, page 3.
  2. Philip Babcock Gove (editor), Webster's Third International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (G. & C. Merriam Co., 1976 [1909], →ISBN), page 3
  3. Elliott K. Dobbie, C. William Dunmore, Robert K. Barnhart, et al. (editors), Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2004 [1998], →ISBN), page 2
  4. “abeyance” in Lesley Brown, editor, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 5th edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 4.
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