A lot vs. Alot: 9 Grammatical Pitfalls
1570s, "to miscarry," from Latin abortus, past participle of aboriri "to miscarry" (see abortive); 1610s as "to deliberately terminate" anything, but especially a pregnancy, which seems to be the literal sense. Transitive meaning "to cause a woman to miscarry" is recorded from 1933. Related: Aborted; aborting.
abort a·bort (ə-bôrt')
v. a·bort·ed, a·bort·ing, a·borts
To expel or cause to expel an embryo or fetus before it is viable.
To arrest a disease in its earliest stages.
To arrest in growth or development; to cause to remain rudimentary.
To terminate a program or process abnormally and usually suddenly, with or without diagnostic information. "My program aborted", "I aborted the transmission". The noun form in computing is "abort", not "abortion", e.g. "We've had three aborts over the last two days".
If a Unix kernel aborts it is known as a panic.