impune

Dan337 commented on the word impune

Impune . . . means “unpunished” (as in “with impunity”) and has nothing whatsoever to do with “impugn” which means “to attack (the reputation of)” or something like that, being related to pugno = “to fight” (as in “pugnacious”, “pugilist” etc)

— “Very Important Things Web Page” (http://lachlan.BlueHaze.com.au/important.html)

It appears (from, e.g., almost every sentence cited on the first page of usage examples for this word*) that almost every person who writes the word “impune” in English intends the word “impugn”.

* The only two exceptions use the word in the Latin† motto “Nemo me impune lacessit” (or a fragment thereof).

† That is to say the language of the motto is Latin; it’s the motto of the Order of the Thistle, a chivalric order associated with Scotland.

January 6, 2011

Dan337 commented on the word impune

“Nemo me impune lacessit” is also the Montrésor family motto in “The Cask of Amontillado”. Here’s a link to a page containing the text of that story, which I include because it also has nice pop-up definitions for less-common words and phrases:

http://PoeStories.com/text.php?file=amontillado

January 6, 2011

GHibbs commented on the word impune

In my experience, in British English usage, the word impune is a verb that means 'to attribute the blame to ...'. I do not remember ever hearing the adjectival use here that has almost the opposite meaning.  The examples above, as of 26/2/14 agree with that.

February 26, 2014

qms commented on the word impune

Dan337 is entirely right. Almost every usage example confuses the rarely used adjective impune (unpunished) with the much more common verb impugn (to challenge, question, cast doubt upon). Is there a way of purging misleading examples?

February 26, 2014

alexz commented on the word impune

for some people, the present usage drives the present definition.

February 26, 2014