v., -fused, -fus·ing, -fus·es. v.tr.
- To indicate unwillingness to do, accept, give, or allow: She was refused admittance. He refused treatment.
- To indicate unwillingness (to do something): refused to leave.
- To decline to jump (an obstacle). Used of a horse.
To decline to do, accept, give, or allow something.
[Middle English refusen, from Old French refuser, from Vulgar Latin *refūsāre, probably blend of Latin recūsāre, to refuse. See recuse and Latin refūtāre, refute; see refute.]
refuser re·fus'er n.SYNONYMS refuse, decline, reject, spurn, rebuff. These verbs all mean to be unwilling to accept, consider, or receive someone or something. Refuse usually implies determination and often brusqueness: “The commander . . . refused to discuss questions of right” (George Bancroft). “I'll make him an offer he can't refuse” (Mario Puzo). To decline is to refuse courteously: “I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters . . . and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize” (Sinclair Lewis). Reject suggests the discarding of someone or something as defective or useless; it implies categoric refusal: “He again offered himself for enlistment and was again rejected” (Arthur S.M. Hutchinson). To spurn is to reject scornfully or contemptuously: “The more she spurns my love,/The more it grows” ( Shakespeare). Rebuff pertains to blunt, often disdainful rejection: “He had . . . gone too far in his advances, and had been rebuffed” (Robert Louis Stevenson).
ref·use2 (rĕf'yūs)
n.
Items or material discarded or rejected as useless or worthless; trash or rubbish.
[Middle English, from Old French refus, rejection, refuse, from refuser, to refuse. See refuse1.]
