refuse
/ɹɪˈfjuz/ verb C2- To decline (a request or demand). · My request for a pay rise was refused.
- To decline a request or demand, forbear; to withhold permission. · I refuse to listen to this nonsense any more.· I asked the star if I could have her autograph, but she refused.
- To withhold (something) from (someone); to not give it to them or to bar them from having it.
- To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the centre, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular alignment when troops are about to engage the enemy. · to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks
Plural refuse · He/she/it refuses · Past refused · Past participle refused · -ing form refusing
Verb forms
- Base form
- refuse
- He/she/it
- refuses
- Past
- refused
- Past participle
- refused
- -ing form
- refusing
From the library
No, for I think he never liked me since the day when I was silly enough, after a little quarrel we had, to propose to him to stop for ten minutes at the island of Monte Cristo to settle the dispute—a proposition which I was wrong to suggest, and he quite right to refuse.
“Ah, yes,” continued Caderousse, “and capital offers, too; but you know, you will be captain, and who could refuse you then?”
“Then you were wrong to refuse to dine with him.”
“What, did you refuse to dine with him?” said old Dantès; “and did he invite you to dine?”
Other matches
Learn refuse in real texts
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