19 August 2014

repudiate

[ri-pyoo-dee-eyt]

verb (used with object), repudiated, repudiating.

1. to reject as having no authority or binding force:
to repudiate a claim.
2. to cast off or disown:
to repudiate a son.
3. to reject with disapproval or condemnation:
to repudiate a new doctrine.
4. to reject with denial:
to repudiate a charge as untrue.
5. to refuse to acknowledge and pay (a debt), as a state, municipality, etc.

Origin

1535-45; < Latin repudiātus (past participle of repudiāre to reject, refuse), equivalent to repudi (um) a casting off, divorce ( re- re- + pud (ere) to make ashamed, feel shame (see pudendum ) + -ium -ium ) + -ātus -ate1

Related forms

repudiable, adjective
repudiative, adjective
repudiator, noun
nonrepudiable, adjective
nonrepudiative, adjective

Can be confused

repudiate, refute, refudiate (see word story at refudiate )

Synonyms
1. disavow, renounce, discard, disclaim. 3. condemn, disapprove.

Antonyms
1. accept. 3. approve.

Examples for repudiate Expand

– To affirm this as a psychiatric malady is to repudiate the principles of science itself.
– Our leaders-and would-be leaders-should repudiate this sort of fatalism.
– Before me now is plaintiff’s motion to repudiate the settlement agreement.

Anagram

– idea erupt
– due pirate

Today’s aphorism

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

– Blaise Pascal

On this day

19 August 14AD – death of Augustus Caesar, founder of the Roman Empire and first Roman Emperor.

19 August 1662 – death of Blaise Pascal, controversial French mathematician, physicist, inventor and writer. Formulated ‘Pascal’s Triangle’, a tabular presentation for binomial coefficients, challenged Aristotle’s followers who claimed that ‘nature abhors a vacuum’. The computer programming language, ‘Pascal’, is named in his honour.

19 August 1900 – start of the first Olympic cricket match, played in Paris. It is the only Olympics in which cricket was played.

19 August 1919 – Afghanistan Independence Day, in which Afghanistan declared its independence from Britain.

19 August – World Humanitarian Day – a day to recognise those who face danger and adversity in order to help others. 19 August was chosen because it is the anniversary of the 2003 bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, which killed Sérgio Vieira de Mello, Special Representative for Secretary-General to Iraq and 21 of his colleagues.