abjure

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The Word of the Day for August 10 is: 

abjure   \ab-JOOR\   verb
     1 a : to renounce upon oath  b : to reject solemnly 
   *2 : to abstain from : avoid 

Example sentence: 
     "The idea that we can learn from history is one 
professional historians usually abjure. They leave it to 
politicians...." (Michael Howard, _The New York Times Book 
Review_, January 10, 1988)

Did you know? 
     Just as a jury swears to produce an unbiased verdict, and a 
witness swears to tell the truth on pain of perjury, those who 
abjure their former ways "swear them away." "Abjure" (as well 
as "jury" and "perjury") comes from Latin "jurare," which 
means "to swear" (and which in turn is based on the root "jus," 
meaning "law"), plus the prefix "ab-," meaning "away." These 
days, we can casually abjure (that is, abstain from) vices such 
as smoking or overeating, but in the 15th and 16th centuries to 
abjure was a matter of renouncing something under oath -- and 
sometimes a matter of life and death. For example, during the 
Spanish Inquisition, individuals were given the choice between 
abjuring unacceptable beliefs and being burned at the stake.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.