different between disavow vs abnegate

English

Etymology

dis- +? avow, or from Old French desavouer.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?s??va?/
• Rhymes: -a?

Verb

disavow (third-person singular simple present disavows, present participle disavowing, simple past and past participle disavowed)

1. (transitive) To strongly and solemnly refuse to own or acknowledge; to deny responsibility for, approbation of, and the like.

   Synonyms: abjure, deny, disclaim, disown, reject

   Antonyms: accept, own up

2. (transitive) To deny; to show the contrary of; to deny legitimacy or achievement of any kind.

   Synonyms: disprove, deny, impugn, reject, repudiate

   Antonyms: accept, prove

Quotations

• 1809 — James Madison, First State of the Union address

  These considerations not having restrained the British Government from disavowing the arrangement by virtue of which its orders in council were to be revoked, and the event authorizing the renewal of commercial intercourse having thus not taken place, it necessarily became a question of equal urgency and importance whether the act prohibiting that intercourse was not to be considered as remaining in legal force.

• 1884 — Edwin Abbott Abbott, Flatland

  In a still more obscure passage he now desires to disavow the Circular or aristocratic tendencies with which some critics have naturally credited him.

• 1901 — H. G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon, ch 12

  It came to me as an absolute, for a moment an overwhelming shock. It seemed as though it wasn't a face, as though it must needs be a mask, a horror, a deformity, that would presently be disavowed or explained.

Related terms

• disavowal
• disavowed

Translations

Anagrams

• Wavoids

English

Etymology

First attested in 1657.

• Perhaps from Latin abneg? (“to refuse, reject”) from ab (“away from”) + neg? (“to deny”),
• Alternatively, perhaps a back-formation from abnegation.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?æb.n?.?e?t/, /?æb.ni.?e?t/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?æb.n?.?e?t/

Verb

abnegate (third-person singular simple present abnegates, present participle abnegating, simple past and past participle abnegated)

1. (transitive) To deny (oneself something); to renounce or give up (a right, a power, a claim, a privilege, a convenience). [First attested in the early 17^th century.]
2. (transitive) To relinquish; to surrender; to abjure. [First attested in the mid 18^th century.]

Related terms

• abnegation
• abnegator
• abnegatory

Translations

References

Latin

Verb

abneg?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of abneg?