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repudiate: msg#00025culture.language.word-of-the-day
***************************************************************** Discover the people and events that made history ON THIS DAY. Sign up for the free daily newsletter from Britannica. http://register.britannica.com/mailinglist ***************************************************************** The Word of the Day for August 26 is: repudiate \rih-PYOO-dee-ayt\ verb 1 : to refuse to have anything to do with : disown *2 : to reject as untrue or unjust Example sentence: The clerk repudiated the charges that he had stolen money from the cash register. Did you know? In Latin, the noun "repudium" refers to the rejection of a spouse or prospective spouse, and the related verb "repudiare" means "to divorce" or "to reject." In the 16th century, English writers used the derivative "repudiate" to mean "to divorce," when in reference to a wife, or "to disown," when in reference to a member of one's family, or just generally "to reject or cast off." By the 19th century the word had acquired a separate sense meaning "to reject as untrue," which was often used in reference to opinions, claims and accusations. Nowadays this second sense is the more common of the two. *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. |
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