abstain
B2CEFR level
40/100Rarity: uncommon
TechnicalRegister
Law verb
To decline to cast a vote either for or against a resolution.
Two directors abstained from voting because of their personal interest in the transaction.
Business verb
To formally decline to cast a vote, being counted as neither for nor against.
Two independent directors chose to abstain, signalling unease without openly opposing the chairman.
Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.
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