abstention

noun

1 the election was marked by a high rate of abstention:

refusal to vote, abstaining, nonvoting;

informal sitting on the fence.

2 the rights and wrongs of alcohol consumption versus abstention:

teetotalism, temperance, sobriety, abstemiousness, abstinence;

rare nephalism.

3 continence is the willful abstention from sexual relations:

celibacy, chastity, singleness, continence, virginity, abstinence, self-restraint, self-denial, bachelorhood, spinsterhood.

▷antonyms promiscuity.

4 the fast was not only a spiritual period of abstention from food and drink:

refraining, desisting, holding back, forbearing, keeping, withholding, abstinence;

renunciation of, refusal of, declining, avoidance of, eschewal of, abjuration of;

shunning, forgoing, going without, doing without.