Eschew vs Gainsay - What's the difference?
eschew | gainsay |
To contradict; to withsay; to deny, refute; to controvert; to dispute; to forbid.
*
* 1902 , , The Hound of the Baskervilles :
* {{quote-news
, date=2012-07-07
, first=
, last=
, author=
, authorlink=
, coauthors=
, title= Griffith acted, and lived, by Golden Rule
, newspaper=The Post and Courier
, city=Charleston
, publisher=Evening Post Publishing
, quotee=
As verbs the difference between eschew and gainsay
is that eschew is (formal) to avoid; to shun, to shy away from while gainsay is to contradict; to withsay; to deny, refute; to controvert; to dispute; to forbid.eschew
English
Usage notes
* The verb is not normally applied to the avoidance or shunning of a person or physical object, but rather, only to the avoidance or shunning of an idea, concept, or other intangible.Quotations
{{timeline , 1500s=1599 , 1900s=1927 , 2010s=2014}} * *: What cannot be eschew’d must be embrac’d. * 1927 , *: He could afford no servants, and would admit but few visitors to his absolute solitude; eschewing close friendships and receiving his rare acquaintances in one of the three ground-floor rooms which he kept in order. * '>citationDerived terms
* (l)References
gainsay
English
Verb
- Know then that in the time of the Great Rebellion (the history of which by the learned Lord Clarendon I most earnestly commend to your attention) this Manor of Baskerville was held by Hugo of that name, nor can it be gainsaid that he was a most wild, profane, and godless man.
citation, page=5, Features , passage=And there was something childlike about Griffith, too, even in his Matlock days, as a deceptively sharp 'simple country lawyer,' a big-kid boyishness that did not mask his intelligence or gainsay his authority. }}