REFUSE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Refuse

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/rəfjˈuz/ /rˈɛfjˌuz/ /rɪfjˈuz/ Listen

verb

Refuse v. t. (past & past part. refused; pres. part. refusing)

To deny, as a request, demand, invitation, or command; to decline to do or grant. "That never yet refused your hest."

(Mil.) To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the center, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular aligment when troops are about to engage the enemy; as, to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks.

To decline to accept; to reject; to deny the request or petition of; as, to refuse a suitor. "The cunning workman never doth refuse The meanest tool that he may chance to use."

To disown. (Obs.) "Refuse thy name."

Refuse v. i. To deny compliance; not to comply. "Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse." "If ye refuse... ye shall be devoured with the sword."

noun

Refuse n. Refusal. (Obs.)

Refuse n. That which is refused or rejected as useless; waste or worthless matter.

Synonyms: Dregs; sediment; scum; recrement; dross.

adjective

Refuse adj. Refused; rejected; hence; left as unworthy of acceptance; of no value; worthless. "Everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly."

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Etymology of 'Refuse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Refuse" Quotes from Famous Books

... artistic power, which enabled them to indicate by a few vigorous scratches the forms of horses, mammoths, reindeer, and other animals. Vast heaps of rubbish still exist in various parts of Europe, which are found to consist of the bones, shells, and other refuse thrown out by these later Palaeolithic men, who had no reverence for the dead, casting out the bodies of their relations to decay with as little thought as they threw away oyster-shells or reindeer-bones. Traces of Palaeolithic ...

— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... among those invited. From the town to Gornostaevka was reckoned between seven and eight miles. Kirilla Matveitch offered me a seat in his coach; but I refused.... In the same way children, who have been punished, wishing to pay their parents out, refuse their favourite dainties at table. Besides, I felt that my presence would be felt as a constraint by Liza. Bizmyonkov took my place. The prince drove in his own carriage, and I in a wretched little droshky, hired for an immense sum for this solemn occasion. I am ...

— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... written (Isa. 7:15): "He shall eat butter and honey, that He may know to refuse the evil and to choose the good," which is an act of the free-will. Therefore there ...

— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... and to turn up your nose at their offer if in just the way to make them itch for you. But how the deuce did you find it out? And where do you get your nerve from, anyway? A little beggar like you to refuse an offer from the T. T. and sit hatching your schemes on your little old 'steen dollars a week! ... It'll have to be twice 'steen, ...

— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... the Blank Building annex a pile of excelsior and bagging and other refuse packing materials protruded into the shaft where once had been the Hawkins Hydro-Vapor Lift. That fact, I suppose, saved ...

— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

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