1. To reject the validity or authority of: "Chaucer . . . not only came to doubt the worth of his extraordinary body of work, but repudiated it" (Joyce Carol Oates).
2. To reject emphatically as unfounded, untrue, or unjust: repudiated the accusation.
3. To refuse to recognize or pay: repudiate a debt.
4. 1. To disown (a child, for example).
   2. To refuse to have any dealings with.

[Latin repudiāre, repudiāt-, from repudium, divorce.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.