Refusing

How to spell refusing

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce refusing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does refusing mean?

1. verbIndicating or showing that one is unwilling to accept, do, or allow something.

Refusing in a sentence

• The bank kept refusing his application for a loan.

• By refusing to sign the contract, she protected her savings.

Where does refusing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb refundere, which literally meant 'to pour back', built from the prefix re- 'back' and fundere 'to pour'. In the spoken Latin of late antiquity a frequentative form, refusare, developed, and its sense drifted from 'pouring back' toward the idea of giving something back or declining to accept it. Old French took this up as refuser, and English borrowed it in the early 1300s, settling on the meaning 'to decline or reject'. Many scholars suspect the French verb was also coloured by two neighbouring Latin words, recusare 'to object to' and refutare 'to drive back, refute', which helped fix the modern sense. The fundere root is surprisingly productive in English, surfacing in 'fuse', 'refund', and 'confuse', and that shared 'fus' spelling is a handy reminder that refusing keeps a single s, not a double.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• fus (from Latin fundere/fusare: pour, give back)
• -ing (present participle suffix)