abiectus

Abiectus is a Latin adjective and the perfect passive participle of the verb abicere, meaning to throw away or cast down. As an adjective it signifies being thrown down, degraded, abject, or humble. It forms a regular set of forms in the second declension: masculine abiectus, feminine abiecta, neuter abiectum; plural abiecti, abiectae, abiecta.

In classical Latin, abiectus describes persons or things in a degraded or lowly state and can be used predicatively or attributively. For example, it can function as a descriptor of a “cast-down” object or person, such as res abiecta (“the cast-down thing”) or vir abiectus (“an abject man”). The sense is often moral or social as well as physical.

In modern usage, abiectus appears mainly in discussions of Latin grammar or in scholarly quotations from Latin texts. It is rarely used as a standalone English term outside such contexts. In biological taxonomy, abiectus is occasionally found as a Latin species epithet to convey a sense of humbler form or lesser stature in the original description, though it is not common and does not carry universal taxonomic meaning beyond the author’s intent.

Etymology is straightforward: abiectus derives from ab- “away” plus icere/icere “to throw,” yielding the sense “thrown away” or “cast down.” The feminine and neuter forms align with standard Latin adjective agreement.

---