Emily Dickinson Lexicon

A-BOL'ISH, v.t. [Fr. abolir; L. aboleo; from ab and oleo, olesco, to grow.]

1. To make void; to annul; to abrogate; applied chiefly and appropriately to established laws, contracts, rites, customs and institutions; as, to abolish laws by a repeal, actual or virtual.
2. To destroy, or put an end to; as, to abolish idols, Isa. ii.; to abolish death, 2 Tim. i. This sense is not common. To abolish posterity, in the translation of Pausanias, lib. 3, ca. 6, is hardly allowable.