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How can I distinguish between using "abstain" and "refrain"? Can they be used interchangeably? Let's see, for example:

  1. When I'm in the classrom and the teacher says: please refrain/abstain from asking silly questions.

  2. I promised my mom that I would refrain/abstain from eating unhealthy food.

  3. My brother finally could refrain/abstain from having sex for more than a week.

Community
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Daniela Diaz
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3 Answers3

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A definition of abstain says:

ab·stain intr.v.

  1. To refrain from something by one's own choice: abstain from traditional political rhetoric. See Synonyms at refrain.

This seems to be in line with how I would use the words; when instructing someone to do something I would say "Please refrain from [x]" but when describing my own practice I would say "I abstain from [x]. So for each of your sentences the following seem the most appropriate:

1) Please refrain from asking silly questions.

2) I promised my mom that I would abstain from eating unhealthy food.

3) My brother finally could abstain from having sex for more than a week.

WendiKidd
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  • I don't know but I had the perception that the difference had to do with taking momentary situations. Like for example "The food seems to be delicious but I'll refrain from eating meat anyway because i'ts Good Friday" vs "I will abstain from eating food whenever I can". Could you please clarify this for me? – Daniela Diaz Jul 06 '13 at 03:04
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    @Daniela: I like your observation, that refrain applies to a shorter time span than abstain. However, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that's always a hard-and-fast difference. – J.R. Jul 06 '13 at 03:09
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    @DanielaDiaz I agree with J.R. on this one; for example you can abstain from voting and that is a momentary action. So this might be true a good portion of the time, but it won't be true all the time. :) – WendiKidd Jul 06 '13 at 17:16
  • @Wendi: That's a good example. This is a very interesting question, in that the two words seem just about synonymous, yet I can think of several contexts where I would almost certainly choose one over the other – yet I'm having trouble pinpointing why, except that, in many contexts, one sounds natural and the other awkward. – J.R. Jul 07 '13 at 10:34
  • In my opinion to abstain is more like a personal commitment to continue not to do something, whereas to refrain is to hold back just that one time. However I do agree that abstaining from a vote appears to be an exception to that. – user132278 Mar 23 '16 at 12:33
  • I promised my mom that I would refrain from eating unhealthy food. I think "refrain" stands better! – SovereignSun Dec 02 '16 at 23:39
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it can often (correctly) be used synonymously; but there are of course often cases where that is not the case, and yet even then it seems to me difficult to come up with a consistent rule that applies. You could say some rule/s apply most of the time but not always.

'refrain' is most commonly and correctly used when someone is directing other people not to do something eg commonly smoking: by contrast, 'abstain' is more commonly about one's own decision, eg abstaining from alcohol. And i think another writer has made a point about the periodicity/frequency of what is being refrained/abstained from: namely, 'refrain' is generally (always?) for short fixed and/or one-off instance; whereas 'abstain' generally indicates a longer-term/on-going personal decision.

And there are those cases of incorrect usage ie where one word has been used when the other would be (more) correct: this incorrect usage then leading to ever wider incorrect usage.

[a la my personal bete noir 'angst'] (hmm. diacritics don't see to work here)

dec
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Abstain is used when referring to avoid use of food or any other physical item; whereas, refrain is used for avoiding from some particular action.

Khalid
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    You may want to adjust this, as sex is something that is frequently talked about "abstaining" from. E.g. abstinence-only sex-ed. – Nathan Tuggy Mar 23 '16 at 06:38