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Renege vs Disavow - What's the difference?

renege | disavow |

As verbs the difference between renege and disavow

is that renege is to break a promise or commitment; to go back on one's word 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.

renege

English

Verb

(reneg)
  • To break a promise or commitment; to go back on one's word.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=February 5 , author=Michael Kevin Darling , title=Tottenham 2 - 1 Bolton , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Just before half-time, Clattenburg awarded Spurs a penalty for the third time after a handball in the area but he reneged after realising that the linesman had flagged Crouch offside in the build-up.}}
  • In a card game, to break one's commitment to follow suit when capable.
  • (archaic) To deny; to renounce
    • (Shakespeare)
  • * Sylvester
    • All Europe high (all sorts of rights reneged ) / Against the truth and thee unholy leagued.

    Anagrams

    *

    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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