ABEL

(male) Biblical name, borne by the younger son of Adam and Eve, who was murdered for reasons of jealousy by his brother Cain (Genesis 4:1–8). The Hebrew form is Hevel, ostensibly representing the vocabulary word hevel ‘breath, vapour’, and so taken to imply vanity or worthlessness. Abel is considered by the Christian Church to have been a pre-Christian martyr (see Matthew 23:35), and is invoked as a saint in the litany for the dying. Nevertheless, his name has not been much used either before or after its brief vogue among the Puritans.