Word of the Day : November 12, 2020

abnegate \AB-nih-gayt\ verb

Definition

1 formal : deny, renounce

2 formal : surrender, relinquish

Did You Know?

There's no denying that the Latin root negāre has given English some useful words. That verb, which means "to deny," is the source of the noun abnegation, a synonym of denial. In time, people concluded that if there was a noun abnegation, there ought to be a related verb abnegate, and so they created one by a process called back-formation (that's the process of trimming an affix off a long word to make a shorter one). Other English offspring of negāre are deny, negate, and renegade.

Aired November 12, 2020

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