What's the difference between discredit and refute?

Discredit


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of discrediting or disbelieving, or the state of being discredited or disbelieved; as, later accounts have brought the story into discredit.
  • (n.) Hence, some degree of dishonor or disesteem; ill repute; reproach; -- applied to persons or things.
  • (v. t.) To refuse credence to; not to accept as true; to disbelieve; as, the report is discredited.
  • (v. t.) To deprive of credibility; to destroy confidence or trust in; to cause disbelief in the accuracy or authority of.
  • (v. t.) To deprive of credit or good repute; to bring reproach upon; to make less reputable; to disgrace.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A bit like the old Lib Dems, perhaps: and indeed the Greens owe a big chunk of their surge to the exodus of voters from Clegg’s discredited rump.
  • (2) No doubt New Labour ministers would regard such moves as protectionism, locked as they are in a discredited free-market mindset.
  • (3) He used the pre-recorded speech to deny accusations of embezzlement, saying: "They aim to tarnish my reputation and discredit my integrity, my stance, my political and military history during which I worked hard for Egypt and its people in peace and war."
  • (4) Moreover, genetics textbooks consistently employ confused or misleading definitions of the concept of heritability that, together with the reporting of discredited data, perpetuate a fundamentally inaccurate understanding of the genetics of intelligence.
  • (5) It said Clinton's "cheap shots" had a hidden agenda to discredit China's engagement with Africa and "drive a wedge between China and Africa for the US selfish gain."
  • (6) And while neoliberalism had been discredited, western governments used the crisis to try to entrench it.
  • (7) Double-label immunoelectron microscopy was used to demonstrate directly the co-existence of ICL and SGAT within individual microbodies, thereby discrediting the two-population hypothesis.
  • (8) Rubio was asked during the debate how he would handle the nation’s finances if he couldn’t handle his own, to which the senator similarly defended himself against what he said were “discredited” attacks.
  • (9) However, many fear that candidates are focusing on fraud in an unscrupulous attempt to set the ground for complaints if they lose, and risk discouraging voters and discrediting the entire election process along the way.
  • (10) Preventive intestinal intubation for ileus prophylaxis in cases of diffuse peritonitis and extended adhesion ileus had often been discredited for the technically demanding and thus time-consuming technique involved.
  • (11) Although it is still early days, some have suggested that, if successful, the model could act as an alternative to prosecutions by the International Criminal Court, which has become discredited in the eyes of many Africans.
  • (12) In a statement to the Guardian this week, Exxon spokesman Richard Keil reiterated: “ExxonMobil does not fund climate denial.” Alec, an ultra-conservative lobby group, has hosted seminars promoting the long-discredited idea that rising carbon dioxide emissions are the “elixir of life”, and was behind legislation banning state planners in North Carolina from considering future sea-level rise.
  • (13) Half a dozen times now they have produced elaborate redesigns of the old, discredited Press Complaints Commission , each subtly different but none delivering the simple, effective, independent redress that Leveson said was necessary.
  • (14) Caro Gonzales, a 26-year-old member of the Chemehuevi tribe and an anti-police violence activist in Washington state, said the language from law enforcement officials resembled that used to discredit unarmed black men killed by police.
  • (15) He deflected the question as an example of an attack which he said was “ discredited ”.
  • (16) Though the evidence that austerity is not working continues to mount, Germany and the other hawks have doubled down on it, betting Europe’s future on a long-discredited theory.
  • (17) Every effort was made to discredit those who rejected the case for invasion and occupation – and would before long be comprehensively vindicated.
  • (18) The future It is therefore surprising that this now discredited notion has been resurrected in the current debate over who can use which public restrooms.
  • (19) It also offers advice on how to talk to your employer, as it’s common for abusers to bombard a target’s workplace with false accusations, hoax phone calls and other tactics designed to discredit them.
  • (20) Surgeons working with laser beam may discredit the method by putting the indication not rigorusly enough.

Refute


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To disprove and overthrow by argument, evidence, or countervailing proof; to prove to be false or erroneous; to confute; as, to refute arguments; to refute testimony; to refute opinions or theories; to refute a disputant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The operational meaning of all the resulting theorems is that when any of them appear to be refuted experimentally, the presence of more than one parallel transport pathway (that is, of membrane heterogeneity transverse to the direction of transport) can be inferred and analyzed.
  • (2) The results presented refute arguments that these enzymes proceed by a concerted mechansim and support the intermediacy of aminoacyladenylates.
  • (3) Theories of urea formation during allantoin degradation in Glycine max have been recently refuted.
  • (4) A mitochondriogenic mechanism of calcification could not be confirmed nor refuted by this study.
  • (5) The probability that the initial situation is correct--the proband and the cohabitant's six children are all legitimate-is "practically refuted": W = 0.03%.
  • (6) The IFS says similar declines emerge if you set the figure as low as 40% of median income – utterly refuting Nick Clegg's toxic line dismissing the threshold as just "poverty plus a pound" .
  • (7) Molly Prince, managing director of the company, refuted the Guardian story with some lustily expressed but random facts: "CPUK have not only purchased tents for everyone (some stewards wanted to use their own but it was too wet to put them up, they insisted in having a go!).
  • (8) The need for neighboring states to use their data to confirm or refute findings is stressed.
  • (9) Hume, whose grantmaking credentials include leading a £500m cancer and palliative care grant programme for the Big Lottery Fund, refutes the notion that hospices will lose out.
  • (10) Additional studies are highly desirable to confirm or refute these findings, which, if valid, mean increasing lung cancer hazards caused by a decrease in ventilation in future energy saving unless special measures are undertaken to reduce radon daughters in dwellings.
  • (11) This did not happen and, on the evidence presented in this paper, the Fry theory of the pathogenesis of the deviated nasal septum is refuted.
  • (12) Marshall refuted claims CSIRO was moving away from public good scientific research , labelling it disturbing and untrue.
  • (13) This explanation was refuted, as all thymic subpopulations were found to express CD1, albeit with differences in antigen density, whereas all extrathymic subpopulations lack CD1.
  • (14) Location of En at the MN locus would not, however, refute the theory that Wra and Wrb cannot function in the absence of En.
  • (15) The hypothesis that the function of recA gene is to convert the unidirectionally replicating machinery in the free state to the bidirectionally replicating one in the integrated state is refuted accordingly.
  • (16) Observation refutes Freud's often quoted statement that masturbation is further removed from the nature of women than of men.
  • (17) Use of such data led to a false impression of drug efficacy, an impression later refuted when proper control studies demonstrated that the range of disease was much greater than had been previously supposed.
  • (18) Results refute the assertion that people who stutter are more anxious or depressed than those who do not.
  • (19) The claim made by astrologers that people can be characterized according to their sign of the zodiac (sagitarius, taurus, cancer, scorpion) must be refuted.
  • (20) Predictions from the chiasma map can be confirmed or refuted only by genetic evidence for which the estimates of this paper serve as initial values to begin maximum likelihood iteration.