Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To refuse to acknowledge or accept as one's own; repudiate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To refuse to acknowledge as belonging or pertaining to one's self; deny the ownership of or responsibility for; not to own or acknowledge; repudiate.
- To deny; not to allow; refuse to admit.
- Specifically, in the Society of Friends, to remove from membership; dismiss.
- Synonyms To disavow, disclaim, disallow, renounce.
Wiktionary
- v. To refuse to own or to refuse to acknowledge one’s own.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To refuse to own or acknowledge as belonging to one's self; to disavow or deny, as connected with one's self personally
- v. To refuse to acknowledge or allow; to deny.
WordNet 3.0
- v. cast off
- v. prevent deliberately (as by making a will) from inheriting
Etymologies
- dis- + own (Wiktionary)
Examples
“So, it's no wonder these white voters can say they'll "disown" their own party if Obama is the nominee.”
“Clinton's group of supporters are a people who find it easier to "disown" their own family members if they are upset with them.”
“It's a little late for Obama to express such outrage, especially since Wright isn't saying anything new, and especially after Obama told us all that he cannot "disown" Wright.”
“I actually think Obama's hesitation to immediately "disown" his former pastor shows backbone and loyalty.”
“I believe that people tend to "disown" their ailments.”
Health Insurance Puzzle, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Just to be clear, there is a reason that all human beings are capable of psychological projection, which is the emotional technique of attributing one's own unacceptable feelings to someone else in order to 'disown' those feelings.”
“He said that he could no more "disown" his pastor than he could disown "my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me.”
Carol Felsenthal: Obama Should Celebrate the Women Who Raised Him
“Hence, where Mr. Obama is concerned, his refusal to "disown" Reverend Wright based on his ludicrous claim that he had not been "present" for any of such sermons makes this an issue of honesty, not race, of political expediency not moral courage.”
“Playing the Race Card and Understanding Who Stacked the Deck yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = 'Playing the Race Card and Understanding Who Stacked the Deck'; yahooBuzzArticleSummary = 'Article: When Barack Obama gave his speech "A More Perfect Union", the public was treated to something different and almost hypnotic; a politician who didn\'t duck the issue, "disown" his pastor for remarks that shocked many Americans.”
Playing the Race Card and Understanding Who Stacked the Deck
“I couldn't "disown" Wright without disowning half my family, most of my friends, 90% of my acquaintences and almost all public figures who have ever spoken with their conscious or unconscious fears and prejudices and reactions giving voice to painful personal perspectives.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘disown’.
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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etymology
preferential, hind, kindling, nonsignificant, intervening, mistakenly, syntactic, streamlined, impassion, impure, involuntary, plaint and 57 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for disown.
bilby
The transports move stealthily to sea—
The sea so prone to take strange freightage eagerly—
But this sad freightage even the sea disowns
And lifts its storms and frowns in darker mood
And never was a cargo more adrift …
There are no ports, no country’s flag, no waiting hands
In any land on earth for it.
Nor any home to take it in.
And all the prisons are too proud.
- Kathryn White Ryan, 'Deported'. Sep 22, 2009