Refute
[rɪ'fjuːt] or [ri'fjʊt]
Definition
(verb.) prove to be false or incorrect.
(verb.) overthrow by argument, evidence, or proof; 'The speaker refuted his opponent's arguments'.
Inputed by Bruno--From WordNet
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.
Checker: Roderick
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. Confute, disprove, prove to be false.
Checker: Vivian
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Negative, disprove, neutralize, controvert, repel, confute
ANT:Prove, confirm, establish
Inputed by Dustin
Definition
v.t. to repel: to oppose: to disprove.—n. Rēfutabil′ity.—adj. Rēfū′table that may be refuted or disproved.—adv. Rēfū′tably.—n. Refutā′tion the act of refuting or disproving.—adj. Rēfū′tātory tending to refute: refuting.—n. Rēfū′ter one who or that which refutes.
Typed by Enid
Examples
- Few have been able to withstand the seeming evidence of this argument; and yet nothing in the world is more easy than to refute it. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
- It is impossible to refute a system, which has never yet been explained. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
- My present business then must be to defend the definitions, and refute the demonstrations. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
- Who wants a system on the basis of the four elements, or a book to refute Paracelsus? George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- That was evidence which one could not well refute. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- On one occasion a correspondent put in my mouth the very charge I had so often refuted--of disloyalty. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- And public opinion, on this occasion, is not easily refuted. Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- Yet the chief of these reasons may perhaps be refuted by the imperfections of the performance. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- The objection that popular government cannot be conducted without the two party system is, I believe, refuted by the experience of Europe. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- What happens in the course of action neither confirms, refutes, nor alters it. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
Checked by Groves