What's the difference between refuse and spurn?

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.

Spurn


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To drive back or away, as with the foot; to kick.
  • (v. t.) To reject with disdain; to scorn to receive or accept; to treat with contempt.
  • (v. i.) To kick or toss up the heels.
  • (v. i.) To manifest disdain in rejecting anything; to make contemptuous opposition or resistance.
  • (n.) A kick; a blow with the foot.
  • (n.) Disdainful rejection; contemptuous tratment.
  • (n.) A body of coal left to sustain an overhanding mass.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But if they spurn it, Scotland can continue using sterling anyway.
  • (2) We cannot as a centre-right party be drawn into the hubris and hysteria of populism that demands total withdrawal from Europe while ignoring the obvious dangers of such action and spurning the opportunity for reform that lies ahead of us.
  • (3) Karzai infuriated both Musharraf and Ashfaq Kayani, his successor as army chief, by spurning offers to help train Afghanistan’s embryonic army.
  • (4) The three big UK parties, in the form of George Osborne, Ed Balls and Danny Alexander, have united in saying that a spurned rest-of-the-UK will agree no currency union with an independent Scotland.
  • (5) While they spurned several opportunities here, allowing tension to creep in before Tadic scored the second 17 minutes from time, their three centre-halves did not allow the Watford strikeforce of Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney a sniff.
  • (6) Today's announcement could be seen as a victory for the ITV management and board's strategic vision over that of the spurned Tony Ball, the former BSkyB boss who was being lined up as the company's new chief executive until negotiations broke down acrimoniously last month.
  • (7) Skifcha spurned a wave of parody videos and fan art but it’s all been rather quiet over the past few years.
  • (8) Somehow, Richard Prince's art spurns my critical advances.
  • (9) Facebook is down almost 4%, LinkedIn lost 3%, and Twitter (which spurned the Nasdaq for the NYSE index) dropped around 4%.
  • (10) The desire to determine the extent inter-rater measurements obtained in a clinical setting are free from measurement error and reflect true scores has spurned a renewed interest in assessment of reliability.
  • (11) Their latest show of wastefulness came as they ended a positive season with a 2-1 defeat to Stoke City and Diafra Sakho was particularly culpable, spurning a glorious chance to make it 2-0 early in the second half.
  • (12) In what appeared to be a planned spree – Rodger uploaded YouTube videos in which he denounced women for spurning him and vowed to take “great pleasure in slaughtering all of you” – he allegedly started by stabbing three men repeatedly in an apartment some time before 9.30pm on Friday.
  • (13) In December it offered almost two Santander shares for each A&L share to secure a deal but was spurned by the UK lender's board.
  • (14) But after spurning a number of chances it looked as though it would not be their night when United, largely against the run of play, took the lead when David Norris picked out Smith with a pin-point cross to head home from close range.
  • (15) Thwarted in his attempts to travel abroad, spurned by his fiancee once police had contacted her, he suffered serial rejection.
  • (16) History will almost certainly judge Osborne as the chancellor who spurned the chance to gain massive public support by tackling tax avoidance properly; consequently, he well may be seen as the man who cost his party the 2015 election.
  • (17) Diplomats say that at dinners he spurns lists of talking points and is willing to engage with his counterparts.
  • (18) 'Yorkshire WIldlife Trust, owners of Spurn Point, asked for help clean up after the December tidal surge.
  • (19) Norman, too, knows what it is like to pass up fine major-winning opportunities; events at Lytham may have proved familiar, though even he never spurned a chance so late in proceedings.
  • (20) At the last general election, less than 12% of voters spurned Tory, Labour or Lib Dem candidates.