Library / English Dictionary

DISOWN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cast off

Example:

The parents repudiated their son

Synonyms:

disown; renounce; repudiate

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "disown" is one way to...):

reject (refuse to accept or acknowledge)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "disown"):

apostatise; apostatize; tergiversate (abandon one's beliefs or allegiances)

abjure; forswear; recant; resile; retract (formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief, usually under pressure)

swallow; take back; unsay; withdraw (take back what one has said)

rebut; refute (overthrow by argument, evidence, or proof)

deny (refuse to accept or believe)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sense 2

Meaning:

Prevent deliberately (as by making a will) from inheriting

Synonyms:

disinherit; disown

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Hypernyms (to "disown" is one way to...):

deprive (keep from having, keeping, or obtaining)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

disowning; disownment (refusal to acknowledge as one's own)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Twenty years ago, a poor curate—never mind his name at this moment—fell in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,—to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in my opinion.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he wept like a simpleton.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless—forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir—I shall cling closer to her than before.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)