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Gainsay vs Disavow - What's the difference?

gainsay | disavow |

As verbs the difference between gainsay and disavow

is that gainsay is to contradict; to withsay; to deny, refute; to controvert; to dispute; to forbid 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.

gainsay

English

Verb

  • To contradict; to withsay; to deny, refute; to controvert; to dispute; to forbid.
  • *
  • * 1902 , , The Hound of the Baskervilles :
    • 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.
  • * {{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= 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. }}

    Derived terms

    * gainsayer * gainsaying

    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

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