deny - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English denyen, from Old French denoier (“to deny, to repudiate”) (French dénier), from Latin denegare (“to deny, to refuse”), from de- (“away”) and negare (“to refuse”), the latter ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *né (“no, not”). Doublet of denegate.

deny (third-person singular simple present denies, present participle denying, simple past and past participle denied)

  1. (transitive) To disallow or reject.
    Antonyms: allow, grant
    I wanted to go to the party, but I was denied.
    • 1847, Anne Brontë, chapter XVI, in Agnes Grey:
      'Do! pray do! I shall be the most miserable of men if you don't. You cannot be so cruel as to deny me a favour so easily granted and yet so highly prized!' pleaded he as ardently as if his life depended on it.
    • 1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 209:
      The proposition that foreigners may be depriving British workers of their cod is politically potent. […] This argument, of course, denies the long British history of overfishing and the fact that the dread Spanish supertrawlers, which are now so universally denounced, wre a British invention.
  2. (transitive) To assert that something is not true.
    Synonyms: contradict, disclaim, gainsay, refute, withsay
    Antonyms: affirm, confirm
    to deny a rumour to deny an allegation
    I deny that I was at the party.
    Everyone knows he committed the crime, but he still denies it.
    • 1604, Jeremy Corderoy, A Short Dialogve, wherein is Proved, that No Man can be Saved without Good VVorkes, 2nd edition, Oxford: Printed by Ioseph Barnes, and are to be sold in Paules Church-yard at the signe of the Crowne, by Simon Waterson, →OCLC, page 40:
      [N]ow ſuch a liue vngodly, vvithout a care of doing the wil of the Lord (though they profeſſe him in their mouths, yea though they beleeue and acknowledge all the Articles of the Creed, yea haue knowledge of the Scripturs) yet if they liue vngodly, they deny God, and therefore ſhal be denied, […]
    • 2011 November 1, James Robinson, Lisa O'Carroll, “Phone hacking: NoW warned about 'culture of illegal information access'”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      But Myler and Crone told the committee in September that they had made Murdoch aware at the 10 June 2008 meeting that hacking was not restricted to a single journalist. They claimed this was the reason Murdoch agreed to settle the Taylor's case. James Murdoch subsequently wrote to the committee to deny this.
  3. (ditransitive) To refuse to give or grant something to someone.
    Antonym: grant
    My father denied me a good education.
    • 1754, Jonathan Edwards, An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions Respecting that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency:
      To some men, it is more agreeable to deny a vicious inclination, than to gratify it.
    • 2008 April 12, “Mother denied daughter's organs”, in BBC‎[2]:
      A mother who urgently needs a kidney transplant has branded the system which denied her the organs of her dying daughter as "ridiculous".
  4. To take something away from someone; to deprive of.
  5. (sports, transitive) To prevent from scoring.
    • 2011 November 3, Chris Bevan, “Rubin Kazan 1 - 0 Tottenham”, in BBC Sport‎[3]:
      Another Karadeniz cross led to Cudicini's first save of the night, with the Spurs keeper making up for a weak punch by brilliantly pushing away Christian Noboa's snap-shot.
      Two more top-class stops followed quickly afterwards, first from Natcho's rasping shot which was heading into the top corner, and then to deny Ryazantsev at his near post.
  6. To disclaim connection with, responsibility for, etc.; to refuse to acknowledge; to disown; to abjure; to disavow.
    Synonyms: disclaim, forswear, renounce; see also Thesaurus:repudiate
    Jesus prophesied that by the time the cock crowed, Peter would have denied him three times.
    • 1834–1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume (please specify |volume=I to X), Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company [_et al._], →OCLC:
      the falsehood of denying his opinion
    • 1827, John Keble, The Christian Year:
      thou thrice denied, yet thrice beloved
    • 1971, Bart Moncq, Body Politic, number 1, page 8:
      Permission to leave these confines has only been granted on the conditions that we deny ourselves and blend in with the Straight Monolith
  7. (obsolete) To refuse (to do or accept something).

to assert that something is not true

to take something away from someone; to deprive of — see deprive

sports: to prevent from scoring

to disclaim connection with, responsibility for, etc.; to refuse to acknowledge; to disown; to abjure; to disavow — see disown,‎ abjure,‎ disavow

  1. ^ https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/25/denied-of/

deny

  1. alternative form of denyen