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Sanction vs Disavow - What's the difference?

sanction | disavow |

As verbs the difference between sanction and disavow

is that sanction is to ratify; to make valid while disavow is to refuse strongly and solemnly to own or acknowledge; to deny responsibility for, approbation of, and the like; to disclaim; to disown.

As a noun sanction

is an approval, by an authority, generally one that makes something valid.

sanction

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • An approval, by an authority, generally one that makes something valid.
  • A penalty, or some coercive measure, intended to ensure compliance; especially one adopted by several nations, or by an international body.
  • A law, treaty, or contract, or a clause within a law, treaty, or contract, specifying the above.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To ratify; to make valid.
  • To give official authorization or approval to; to countenance.
  • * 1946 , (Bertrand Russell), History of Western Philosophy , I.21:
    • Many of the most earnest Protestants were business men, to whom lending money at interest was essential. Consequently first Calvin, and then other Protestant divines, sanctioned interest.
  • To penalize (a State etc.) with sanctions.

    • Anagrams

    * English contranyms English refractory feminine rhymes ----

    disavow

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To refuse strongly and solemnly to own or acknowledge; to deny responsibility for, approbation of, and the like; to disclaim; to disown.
    • He was charged with embezzlement, but he disavows the crime.
  • To deny; to show the contrary of; to disprove.
    • Because of her dissatisfaction, she now disavows the merits of fascism.

    Quotations

    * 1809 — *: These considerations not having restrained the British Government from disavowing the arrangement by virtue of which its orders in council were to be revoked, and the event authorizing the renewal of commercial intercourse having thus not taken place, it necessarily became a question of equal urgency and importance whether the act prohibiting that intercourse was not to be considered as remaining in legal force. * 1884 — *: In a still more obscure passage he now desires to disavow the Circular or aristocratic tendencies with which some critics have naturally credited him. * 1901 — , ch 12 *: It came to me as an absolute, for a moment an overwhelming shock. It seemed as though it wasn't a face, as though it must needs be a mask, a horror, a deformity, that would presently be disavowed or explained.

    Synonyms

    * (to refuse to own) abjure, deny, disclaim, disown, reject * (to deny or show the contrary of) deny, disprove, impugn, reject, repudiate

    Antonyms

    * (to refuse to own) accept, own up * (to deny or show the contrary of) accept, prove

    Related terms

    * disavowal * disavowed

    Anagrams

    *