What's the difference between disown and refuse?

Disown


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To refuse to own or acknowledge as belonging to one's self; to disavow or deny, as connected with one's self personally; as, a parent can hardly disown his child; an author will sometimes disown his writings.
  • (v. t.) To refuse to acknowledge or allow; to deny.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Disowned by family and despised by public opinion, she is now in prison.
  • (2) I have disowned him Ibrohim Kurbonov The International Crisis Group also believe the situation in central Asia is rapidly deteriorating, as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan unites with Isis.
  • (3) Within hours of the judge Hans-Joachim Eckert publishing his summary of Garcia’s 430-page report, which effectively cleared Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 of serious wrongdoing and praised Blatter and the process, the US attorney had disowned it .
  • (4) So perhaps the most surprising thing about the Roberts affair is the speed and frankness with which his own bosses publicly disowned him.
  • (5) I've never posted a picture of my child on it and it transpires that was wise, because my best friend would have disowned me.
  • (6) While promising to investigate Henwood's comments, Ukip has declined to disown him outright, instead claiming the party was the victim of smear campaigns orchestrated by other parties alarmed at Ukip's success in the polls.
  • (7) He had also threatened to hang himself, and had been disowned by his mother and two sisters for being violent and aggressive.
  • (8) In April 1994, the Saudi government stripped Bin Laden of his citizenship and his family disowned his actions.
  • (9) In many cases tabloid newspapers published stories identifying men or women who were subsequently disowned by their family or assaulted in the street.
  • (10) Unusually, the BND’s analysis was disowned by the German government after the Saudis complained.
  • (11) The EGAF report has now been disowned by the original study's co-authors , the European Climate Foundation.
  • (12) Her plans were disowned by Cameron in the Commons when the pressure became too great, giving her the unlikely status of the first coalition Conservative martyr.
  • (13) These include (1) disownment and redirection of an intolerable experience to another, (2) manipulation of the recipient in an attempt to control, and (3) an induction of congruent responses in the recipient.
  • (14) Is Labour not letting us all down by not hounding Osborne, demanding details, making it plain that if the turkeys do vote for this Christmas, it will be the type that even Scrooge would disown?
  • (15) But when Parnell’s secret affair with Kitty O’Shea blew open in 1890, Gladstone disowned him – and the home rulers made the fatal mistake of sacking the charismatic Parnell in order to keep in with the Liberals.
  • (16) What if the claims made for neuroscience are so extreme that most neuroscientists would disown them?
  • (17) Farage disowned the entire 2010 Ukip manifesto – and not in the open manner of an honest politician admitting to past mistakes.
  • (18) But less than 24 hours after his comments disowning the book were published, a statement from Talese’s publisher Grove Press revealed a change of heart.
  • (19) In fairness to Cameron, he understands this and disowns the "bonfire" phrase as simplistic.
  • (20) Garcia has disowned Eckert’s summary of his 430-page report, which effectively cleared Russia and Qatar.

Refuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deny, as a request, demand, invitation, or command; to decline to do or grant.
  • (v. t.) To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the center, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular aligment when troops ar/ about to engage the enemy; as, to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks.
  • (v. t.) To decline to accept; to reject; to deny the request or petition of; as, to refuse a suitor.
  • (v. t.) To disown.
  • (v. i.) To deny compliance; not to comply.
  • (n.) Refusal.
  • (n.) That which is refused or rejected as useless; waste or worthless matter.
  • (a.) Refused; rejected; hence; left as unworthy of acceptance; of no value; worthless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We were instantly refused entrance by the heavies at the door.
  • (2) There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.
  • (3) Such a science puts men in a couple of scientific laws and suppresses the moment of active doing (accepting or refusing) as a sufficient preassumption of reality.
  • (4) There were no deaths but one refused to have ketamine again.
  • (5) That’s a criticism echoed by Democrats in the Senate, who issued a report earlier this month criticising Republicans for passing sweeping legislation in July to combat addiction , the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (Cara), but refusing to fund it.
  • (6) She successfully appealed against the council’s decision to refuse planning permission, but neighbours have launched a legal challenge to be heard at the high court in June.
  • (7) Tony Abbott has refused to concede that saying Aboriginal people who live in remote communities have made a “lifestyle choice” was a poor choice of words as the father of reconciliation issued a public plea to rebuild relations with Indigenous people.
  • (8) The military is not being honest about the number of men on strike: most of us are refusing to eat.
  • (9) But employers who have followed a fair procedure may have the right to discipline or finally dismiss any smoker who refuses to accept the new rules.
  • (10) Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker has refused to say whether he believes in the theory of evolution, arguing that it is “a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other”.
  • (11) But in a setback to the UK, Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991, refused British entreaties to attend on the grounds that it would not have been treated as equal to the Somali government.
  • (12) Ten patients had been treated by adrenalectomy, one patient by radiotherapy of the hypophysis, and one patient had refused any treatment.
  • (13) What if the court of justice refuses to answer the question?
  • (14) The only thing the media will talk about in the hours and days after the debate will be Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the results of the election, making him appear small, petty and conspiratorial.
  • (15) A small band of shadow cabinet members have lined up to refuse to serve in posts they haven’t even been offered, on the basis of objection to economic policies they clearly haven’t read.
  • (16) The prerequisite for all champions is the refusal to cave in, so City's equaliser with only three minutes remaining was pleasing.
  • (17) Black males with low intentions to use condoms reported significantly more negative attitudes about the use of condoms (eg, using condoms is disgusting) and reacted with more intense anger when their partners asked about previous sexual contacts, when a partner refused sex without a condom, or when they perceived condoms as interfering with foreplay and sexual pleasure.
  • (18) As long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to the release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements, while Israel continuously violates them,” Abbas said.
  • (19) The people who will lose are not the commercial interests, and people with particular vested interests, it’s the people who pay for us, people who love us, the 97% of people who use us each week, there are 46 million people who use us every day.” Hall refused to be drawn on what BBC services would be cut as a result of the funding deal which will result in at least a 10% real terms cut in the BBC’s funding.
  • (20) These letters are also written during a period when Joyce was still smarting from the publishing difficulties of his earlier works Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Gordon Bowker, Joyce’s biographer, agreed: “Joyce’s problem with the UK printers related to the fact that here in those days printers were as much at risk of prosecution on charges of publishing obscenities as were publishers, and would simply refuse to print them.