Examples of abstain

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0
We therefore abstained from voting where these amendments were concerned.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I am therefore abstaining in the final vote.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I believe that we, too, must send out a message of support by abstaining.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I have abstained, because the report does not go into sufficient detail about the actual problems involved.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I have abstained, because the report clearly states that no reliable scientific data is available on this subject.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
Given our views on enlargement, we abstained from this report.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
Here is the result: 316 people voted in favour, 264 voted against and 33 people abstained.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I have abstained from voting because the rapporteur has not described in detail how we can guarantee that these mechanisms are complied with.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I abstained from the final vote because it included a proposal to put through a moratorium on new reactors.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
We abstained in the final vote on this report.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
We have therefore abstained in the vote concerning the remainder of the present period of office.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I abstained from the vote on the resolution.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I abstained from voting, as the report does not yet completely resolve all of the problems associated with the handling of hazardous substances.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I have abstained from voting on this report.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I therefore abstained in some of the votes.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
We are abstaining on controlled thermonuclear fusion, controlled nuclear fusion.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I am abstaining from voting on this report.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I understand my colleagues on the right will be abstaining tomorrow.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
By all means, try to solve your own problems, but, since they do not concern us, we abstained from this vote.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
We have abstained from voting in this vote because of the above-mentioned conflict.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I personally abstained, and the draft was rejected by a narrow majority.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
We abstained on a highly important issue where legality is very much at stake.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
We abstained rather than voting against the motion, purely because we did not want to oppose the - albeit ludicrously inadequate - aid envisaged.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I would be grateful if you would at least think about it and consider abstaining.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
I abstained from voting in the final vote.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
With his inherent love of life, he started meeting people socially again, although he abstained from alcohol and cigarettes.
Although these groups of adolescents were similar in that they abstained from substance use, their reasons for abstaining were unique to each group.
He has cut his salary, abstained from alcohol, worked absurdly long hours, and shared the presidential residence with members of his cabinet.
Needless to say, impacts on the legislative result and sanction from the party leadership would differ between voting against and abstaining from the bills.
Most city dwellers did not bother to pass by - they simply abstained.
If they had abstained from manipulation, we would have been able to detect all individual cases of cancer that had resulted from their actions.
Which girls abstained from these games, or varied them?
If the drunkard abstains, then abstinence appears as the greatest good at the time.
Secondly, the revolutionary alliance found itself increasingly caught between two forces which either actively opposed the process or aggressively abstained from it.
Indeed, it may well have been pressure-group activity that brought pro-abolitionists into the division lobbies in 1956 after having abstained in 1955.
Of the 479 total speeches, 204 were from senators voting yea and 272 from senators voting nay (with one senator abstaining).
In 1958 the numbers were little better: 33.9 per cent registered but of those 13.9 abstained from voting.
Perhaps he abstains because many of the extrapolations are obvious if not trivial, or because some have been anticipated within the revisionist tradition already.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.