abjure

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English abjuren,^[2][3][4] partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman abjurer, also Middle French abjurer, and partly borrowed from Latin abiūrō (“to deny on oath”),^[5][4][2][6] from ab- (“away”) and iūrō (“to swear”),^[5][7][6] from iūs (“law”),^[4][8] for which the American Heritage Dictionary refers to Proto-Indo-European *yewes-.^[7] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the 14th century, with the senses of renouncing allegiance on oath (about 1327) and swearing to leave a place for ever.^[5][9] The sense of recanting a heresy, however, is apparently not found in French until the 16th century; in British Latin it dates from the 14th.^[5] British sources in Latin also have the phrases “abiurare terram” and “abiurare regnum”, from the late 12th and early 13th centuries, which the OED compares with the English phrase “abjure the realm”.^[5] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged likewise allow either a French or a Latin route,^[10][3] and the Shorter Oxford and Dictionary.com give only Latin.^[11][12] Compare Spanish abjurar (before 1428).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To renounce or recant on oath: 1430, in the register of John Stafford, in a recantation that promises never again to hold certain articles.^[5][2][10] Etymonline says the early 15th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The early uses concern a formal oath, with a heresy (1430) or a place (before 1475) as the object.^[5][2] It could also mean causing a person to recant, from about 1475,^[5] and of repudiating a claim or a person, from before 1460.^[5] A criminal could claim immunity by abjuring the realm, swearing to leave it for ever.^[5][3] Shakespeare has it in The Tempest: "This rough magic I here abjure".^[11] Johnson (1755) still defined it as casting off upon oath and as retracting upon oath.^[13] The OED now marks the oath senses as historical,^[5] while Collins and Merriam-Webster Unabridged give a weaker current sense, to give up or to keep away from something, with no oath at all.^[14][3]

Timeline

• 1430 – to renounce on oath, to recant a heresy or opinion.^[5][2][10]
• before 1460 – to reject or repudiate on oath a claim or a claimant.^[5]
• before 1475 – to swear to leave a place for ever, especially abjure the realm.^[5]
• c. 1475 – to cause a person to recant.^[5]
• 1528 – intransitive, to renounce a heresy on oath.^[5]
• 1530 – intransitive, to swear to leave a place for ever.^[5]
• 1603 – to banish from one's country (obsolete by 1709).^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To renounce or recant formally, especially on oath: The accused abjured his teachings before the bishop.^[14][3][5]
2. To give up or reject.^[3][14]
3. To keep away from; to abstain from.^[3][14]
4. (law, historical) To swear to leave a place for ever, as in abjure the realm.^[5][3][11]
5. (historical) To make a person recant.^[5][11]

Word family

• abjuration
• abjurer
• abjuratory

Related words

• adjure
• jury
• jurist
• perjury
• conjure

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists it with adjure as a pair of words that are easily confused;^[12] adjure is to command, often by exacting an oath, or to appeal earnestly to someone.^[14]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins