abstain

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 28, 2020 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>abstain</strong> &#149; \ub-STAYN\&nbsp; &#149; <em>verb</em><br /> <p><strong>1 :</strong> to choose not to do or have something <strong>:</strong> to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-denial">self-denial</a> from an action or practice</p> <p><strong>2 :</strong> to choose not to vote</p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>"For more than a hundred and fifty days a year, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians <em>abstain</em> from animal products, in accordance with religious fasting." — <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/27/ethiopian-tradition-for-the-vegan-curious-at-ras-plant-based">Hannah Goldfield, <em>The New Yorker</em>, 17 July 2020</a></p> <p>"The school board Monday voted 5-1, with one <em>abstaining</em>, to approve guidelines for moving classes online that are less restrictive than those established by the state." — <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/education/2020/08/11/waukee-online-classes-iowa-education-gov-kim-reynolds-return-to-learn-in-person-covid-19-coronavirus/3346849001/">Sarah Kay LeBlanc, <em>The Des Moines (Iowa) Register</em>, 11 Aug. 2020</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>If you abstain, you're consciously, and usually with effort, choosing to hold back from doing something that you would like to do. One may abstain from a vice, for example, or in parliamentary procedure, one might abstain from placing a vote. So it's no surprise that <em>abstain</em> traces back through Middle English and Anglo-French to the Latin <em>abstinēre</em>, which combines the prefix <em><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ab-#h6">ab-</a></em> ("from, away, off") with <em>tenēre</em>, a Latin verb meaning "to hold." <em>Tenēre</em> ha