Dictionary.net

Forsake is applied to leaving: that which natural affection or a sense of duty should have led us to remain by: as, to forsake our home, friends, or country; a bird forsakes its nest. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up."-Ps. xxvii. 10. (ln the passive it often means left desolate, forlorn. Desert may sometimes be synonymous with forsake, but it usually implies a greater degree of culpability and the infringement of some legal obligation; as, to desert one's wife and children; to desert one's regiment. Abandon is to leave and give up finally and completely; as. to abandon evil courses; but generally it implies the laying aside of all care and concern for an object, especially when danger threatens it, or when longer connection might prove dangerous to ourselves; as to abandon a hopeless enterprise, or a sinking ship.