Abstaining [verb]

The state Senate voted on Wednesday to abolish the death penalty, with all 21 Democrats in favor while 17 Republicans opposed and one abstained.

It gives users a thermometer for daily temperature checks and claims to indicate when the user is ovulating and should either abstain from sex or use protection to prevent pregnancy.

While some criticisms of the tradition may be valid, the fact is that abstaining from or reducing alcohol intake, at any time, is an admirable endeavor—not a reason to shame people.

He said he had hoped to vote against it but instead would abstain from voting, to make clear that he disapproved of Chase’s behavior.

Employees at Google have called on the company to abstain from work in the oil and gas industry, citing environmental concerns, and work with authoritarian regimes.

On Tuesday, 54 Tory MPs voted against their own party’s restrictions—a large enough number that the bill could have been defeated if Labour, the main opposition party, hadn’t abstained from the vote.

This is where you start the year abstaining from alcohol for the whole month.

Abstaining from certain practices in which idolaters engaged, they were ceremonially holy.

There is little merit, I should think, in abstaining from such a constant use of medicine.

The city was taken, it is said, by waiting for the day of fast, on which the Jews were in the habit of abstaining from all work.