A WORD A DAY.

Southland Times, Issue 21264, 10 December 1930, Page 8

A WORD A DAY.

REPUDIATE. If we repudiate a thing we cast it off, we refuse? to have anything to do with it we refuse to acknowledge it or any responsibility for it, we denounce it and refuse to accept its claims. The word is derived from the Latin repudiare, “to put away, reject,” from repudium, “a casting off,” literally, “a rejection of what one is ashamed of”-—com-pounded of re, “away, back,” and pudere, “to feel shame.” “Renounce,” “abjure,” and “repudiate” agree in the idea of disavowing a former estate, opinion, assertion, etc., with these differences: “to renounce” is merely to affirm one’s abandonment of something; “to abjure” is to renounce with the solemnity of an oath; “to repudiate,” however, is to disclaim responsibility for, or to reject as not authoritative or binding. Re-pu-di-atc is accented on the second syllable; sound e as in event, u as in use, i as in it, a as in late. “He repudiated the claim as a selfevident impossibility.”