abortive• My conversation with the Ministry seemed to take ages, and, as I had already anticipated, it proved abortive.• The attack against Beaumont-Hamel proved abortive, and a thrust made by the ThirdArmy against Gommecourt failed utterly.• He then tried out these elements on an abortive design for Halifax Town Hall, before the competition officially had started.• Brunel had also commissioned him to prepare an abortivescheme for him for a house at Watcombe in 1851.• Any abortivetreatment must have a very rapid action because of the paincrescendocharacteristic of these headaches.