Reject

How to spell reject

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce reject

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reject mean?

1. verbTo refuse to accept, use, believe, or approve of something or someone.
2. nounAn item discarded or set aside because it fails to meet the required standard.

Reject in a sentence

• verb

  The committee may reject any application that arrives after the deadline.

• noun

  The factory sells each flawed reject at a heavy discount.

• verb

  The bank could reject the loan if your credit score is too low.

• noun

  Inspectors place every cracked tile on the reject pile.

Where does reject come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin reicere, later written rejicere, which combined re- meaning 'back' with jacere meaning 'to throw'. The literal sense was therefore 'to throw back', the idea of casting something away from you because you will not accept it. English took the word in the early 1400s, partly through the Latin past participle rejectus and partly through Old French, and the meaning of refusing or discarding something was there from the start. The same jacere root, 'to throw', quietly powers a whole family of English words, including 'project' (thrown forward), 'inject' (thrown in), 'eject' (thrown out) and 'subject' (thrown under). Recognising that shared -ject element, always spelled with a 'j' and never a 'g', is the surest way to keep the spelling steady.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• ject (throw, from Latin jacere 'to throw')