jet-, -ject, -jecting, -jected, -jection, -jector, -jectory; jacu-, jac-

1. Of the most contemptible kind, despicable; such as, "An abject coward".
2. Of the most miserable kind, wretched; such as, "They lived in abject poverty".
3. Etymology: from Latin ab-, "away" + Latin jacere, "to cast, to throw"; literally, "throwing away" or "thrown away".

Origins and development

A transition from the literal to the figurative, and from cause to effect, has occurred in the meaning of abject. Ab, meaning "off", "away" plus jacere, meaning "to throw", were combined in Latin to form abjicere, "to throw away", with a past participle abjectus, "thrown away".

Directly from this source came the English word abject, which was formerly not only an adjective but also a verb meaning "to cast off", "to throw down", and, with a figurative application, "to degrade". It is this latter meaning that survives in the Modern English adjective abject which characterizes someone who has been cast off or degraded and who is therefore low in emotional condition or cast down in spirit.

Adjective.

Used in grammar when referring to a modifier (descriptive word/words) of a noun or a pronoun.