Abnegate

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈæb.nɪ.ɡeɪt/

Definitions

  1. To refuse, reject, or renounce something, especially a claim, right, or responsibility, often by formal denial or deliberate abandonment
  2. To solemnly reject or renounce a right, duty, or claim through deliberate refusal
  3. To formally deny, disown, or cast aside something one could claim or be obligated to do

Etymology: For nearly three hundred years, English had the noun "abnegation" without any verb to go with it. "Abnegation," meaning self-denial, was in use by the late 1300s. A verb to match did not appear until 1657, and it may simply have been carved out of the older noun, the way "edit" was later clipped from "editor." Both words lead back to Latin "abnegare," "to refuse, reject," built from "ab" ("away from") and "negare" ("to deny"). "Abnegation" came into English from Late Latin "abnegatio," "denial, self-denial," a word also used in Christian Latin. In the Vulgate, Jerome's Latin Bible, Jesus says in Matthew 16:24 that whoever would follow him must "abneget semetipsum," "deny himself," and take up his cross. When the verb finally arrived in the mid-seventeenth century, it could have come by either of two routes, and neither can be ruled out. Writers may have borrowed it straight from the Latin past participle "abnegatus." Or they may have backed into it from "abnegation," which had been familiar for generations. Either way, its first sense was to deny, refuse or renounce, and it kept a formal, slightly solemn air. The same root, "negare," gives English a whole family of refusals. "Deny" came through Old French "denier" from Latin "denegare." "Renege" and "renegade" both go back to Medieval Latin "renegare," the second by way of the Spanish "renegado," a Christian who had renounced his faith. "Negate" and "negative" come from the same verb. Among all these relatives, "abnegate" is the one that means giving something up formally, by choice.

Synonyms: renounce, reject, relinquish, forgo, surrender

Antonyms: accept, embrace, adopt, embrace, claim