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Monday August 24, 2009

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abnegate [AB-nih-gayt]

transitive verb

1. To deny or reject something; to renounce; to refuse.

• Their teachers, meanwhile, hope that the rite of passage will help them deal with, not abnegate, their human feelings about an experience they describe as "an activity that feels simultaneously wrong and very right, a taboo and yet a privilege."
  Peter Scowen, "Medical school cut-ups", The Globe and Mail, Jul 25, 2009
• Republicans must have a disposition that calls us to independence of thought and action, that impels us to abnegate dependence on government programs ostensibly proffered to save us from ourselves.
  Nicholas J. Voegeli, "One Party-Rule Never Bodes Well", Wisconsin State Journal, Nov 9, 2008
• "My daughter," he addressed her. The chapter on human error was opened: "We are all of one family--all of us erring children--all of us bound to abnegate hatred: by love alone are we saved.
  George Meredith (1828 - 1909) An English novelist and poet. Vittoria (1867)

Origin of the Word

Abnegate, approximately 1657, is a back-formation from (English) abnegation, derives from Late Latin abnegatio, abnegation-, from Latin abnegare, "to refuse; to refute," from ab-, "away" + negare, "to deny."