Word of the Day

Saturday August 29, 2009

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abjure [ab-JUR]

transitive verb

1. To renounce under oath.
2. To reject or renounce formally; to recant; repudiate.
3. To abstain from or avoid something.

• "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen," the new U.S. citizens stated in unison.
  Wendi Winters, "52 become U.S. citizens in Annapolis", Capital, Jul 5, 2009
• Obama is right to be realistic and to abjure bombastic rhetoric. Moralism is expensive -- costly in blood and treasure. This is the new reality. The danger is that we will turn inward -- not isolationist, because that is impossible -- but financially exhausted and callously indifferent to the rest of the world.
  Richard Cohen, "Moralism on the Shelf", The Washington Post, Mar 10, 2009
• "But even if you succeeded in gaining a complete victory, if every church in city and country again belonged to the only faith by which we can obtain salvation, I shall still see them deprived of their holy vocation, for they will stand empty, because then the men who would rather die than abjure their delusion will be lying silent upon battlefields."
  Georg Ebers (1837 - 1898) A German Egyptologist and novelist. Barbara Blomberg v4

Origin of the Word

Abjure, approximately 1430, derives from Middle French abjurer, from Latin abjurare "deny on oath," from ab- "away" + jurare "to swear."