Abandoner

to leave completely and finally; forsake utterly; desert:
to abandon one’s farm; to abandon a child; to abandon a sinking ship.
to give up; discontinue; withdraw from:
to abandon a research project; to abandon hopes for a stage career.
to give up the control of:
to abandon a city to an enemy army.
to yield (oneself) without restraint or moderation; give (oneself) over to natural impulses, usually without self-control:
to abandon oneself to grief.
Law. to cast away, leave, or desert, as property or a child.
Insurance. to relinquish (insured property) to the underwriter in case of partial loss, thus enabling the insured to claim a total loss.
Obsolete. to banish.
verb (transitive)
to forsake completely; desert; leave behind: to abandon a baby, drivers had to abandon their cars
abandon ship, the order given to the crew of a ship that is about to sink to take to the lifeboats
to give up completely: to abandon a habit, to abandon hope
to yield control of or concern in; relinquish: to abandon office
to give up (something begun) before completion: to abandon a job, the game was abandoned
to surrender (oneself) to emotion without restraint
to give (insured property that has suffered partial loss or damage) to the insurers in order that a claim for a total loss may be made
noun
freedom from inhibitions, restraint, concern, or worry: she danced with abandon
v.

late 14c., “to give up, surrender (oneself or something), give over utterly; to yield (oneself) utterly (to religion, fornication, etc.),” from Old French abandoner (12c.), from adverbial phrase à bandon “at will, at discretion,” from à “at, to” (see ad-) + bandon “power, jurisdiction,” from Latin bannum, “proclamation,” from a Frankish word related to ban (v.).

Mettre sa forest à bandon was a feudal law phrase in the 13th cent. = mettre sa forêt à permission, i.e. to open it freely to any one for pasture or to cut wood in; hence the later sense of giving up one’s rights for a time, letting go, leaving, abandoning. [Auguste Brachet, “An Etymological Dictionary of the French Language,” transl. G.W. Kitchin, Oxford, 1878]

Etymologically, the word carries a sense of “put someone under someone else’s control.” Meaning “to give up absolutely” is from late 14c. Related: Abandoned; abandoning.

n.

“a letting loose, surrender to natural impulses,” 1822, from a sense in French abandon (see abandon (v.). Borrowed earlier (c.1400) from French in a sense “(someone’s) control;” and cf. Middle English adverbial phrase at abandon, i.e. “recklessly,” attested from late 14c.