repudiation

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French repudiation (“divorce, legal separation”), recorded from 1349, and partly borrowed from Latin repudiātiō (“refusal to accept, rejection”).^[2] Most other dictionaries give the Latin alone.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} The Latin noun is formed on repudiātus, the past participle of repudiō (“to cast off, divorce, reject”),^[2][3][4][6] from repudium (“divorce, rejection”),^[2][3][8][9] which is re- (“back, away”) and a second part, -pudium.^[3][4] This part is probably related to pudeō (“to be ashamed”),^[3][4][6] though Etymonline reports a suggestion by Barnhart, and Ayto likewise, that it goes with pēs (“foot”), the idea being of kicking someone out.^[3][8] The noun is recorded slightly earlier in English than the verb repudiate, of 1534,^[2] and the OED also compares the older noun repudy.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The divorcing of a wife: 1530, in J. Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged likewise gives about 1530,^[4] Dictionary.com 1535–45,^[7] Etymonline the 1540s,^[3] and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate 1545.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The general sense of rejecting or disowning something is recorded from 1640, in R. Brathwait,^[2] well before Etymonline's date of 1850 and the Shorter Oxford's mid 19th century.^[3][5] Johnson (1755) still gave "divorce; rejection", with a quotation from Arbuthnot about divorcing a wife at Athens.^[11] The financial sense arose in the United States: the OED's first quotation is from the United States Magazine & Democratic Review of January 1842,^[2] and Etymonline, which has it by 1843, ties it to the disowning of debts by American states in the financial crisis of 1837–43.^[3] From there it broadened in law to refusing to meet the terms of a contract, a use the Shorter Oxford dates to the early 20th century.^[5][2] A supporter of repudiating a public debt was called a repudiationist from the mid 19th century.^[5]

Timeline

• 1530 – the divorcing of a wife.^[2][4]
• 1640 – the rejecting or disowning of something.^[2]
• 1842 – refusal to pay a debt or meet the terms of a contract.^[2] Etymonline has it, of debts, by 1843.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of rejecting or disowning someone or something, or the state of being rejected: her repudiation of her earlier views.^{[9][4][2][12]}
2. Refusal to honour a contract or pay a debt, especially by a public authority.^{[9][7][4][12][2]}
3. The divorcing of a wife by her husband.^[4][2][5]

Word family

• repudiationist
• nonrepudiation

Related words

• repudiate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press