Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun the refusal to acknowledge (something or somebody) as one's own.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of disown.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun refusal to acknowledge as one's own

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.

    Berlinski's Wisdom 2010

  • Nonetheless, Wordsworth's celebrated innovation in disowning the mechanisms embraced by both the Gothic and its critics in the 1790s and proposing a solid and oppositional departure in their place secured him a more enduring reputation in the history of British

    Haunted Britain in the 1970s 2005

  • The boy's remarks had reference to the frequent interviews between the two parties, while the Orthodox were engaged in "disowning" the Hicksites.

    John and Mary; or, The Fugitive Slaves, a Tale of South-Eastern Pennsylvania 1873

  • Friends Meetings needed to, and did, recommend some people as ministers authorized to speak for them, while "disowning" the doctrines and practices of people they felt misrepresented them.

    Discussion Forum - Quaker Quaker Forrest Curo 2009

  • PUNE: Coming out in support of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and other Malegaon blasts accused, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray on Saturday lashed out at pro-Hindutva elements for "disowning" them and asked the legal community to come forward to defend the trio.

    The Times of India 2008

  • "disowning" them and asked the legal community to defend the trio.

    The Hindu - Front Page 2008

  • Cue outrage from City Hall, Tory bloggers and then a statement from Ken, Labour's mayoral candidate for 2012, disowning his former associate.

    Hugh Muir's diary 2011

  • But, then, am I his superior in anything but caution and years, and how can I disown him without disowning also his useful works, on which I still receive royalties?

    January « 2009 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

  • But, then, am I his superior in anything but caution and years, and how can I disown him without disowning also his useful works, on which I still receive royalties?

    john updike | march 18, 1932 – january 27, 2009 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

  • Putting forward a plan to balance the budget in order to say one has a plan and then disowning the content of that plan is not worthy of serious consideration.

    Matthew Yglesias » More Condescension Needed 2010

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