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abnuo. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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Latin
Etymology
From ab- (“from, away from”) + *nuō (“nod”), literally “to reject by a nod”.
Pronunciation
Verb
abnuō (present infinitive abnuere, perfect active abnuī, supine abnuitum); third conjugation
- (literally, rare, often in conjunction with adnuō) to say no, to nod in negation
c. 189 BCE,
Plautus,
Truculentus prol.4–6:
- Quid nunc? Datūrīn estis an nōn? Annuont.
Quid sī dē vostrō quippiam ōrem? Abnuont.- Well then? Are you going to give it or not? They nod in approval.
What if I asked for something of yours? They nod in disapproval.
8 CE – 12 CE,
Ovid,
Sorrows 5.10.41–42:
- Utque fit, in sē aliquid fingī, dīcentibus illīs
abnuerim quotiēns adnuerimque, putant.- Either way, they think I'm inventing something about them, whenever they speak
and I nod in negation and affirmation.
- to refuse, reject
- Synonyms: recūsō, negō, renuō
- Antonyms: adnuō, aiō
c. 40 BCE,
Sallust,
Bellum Iugurthinum 47:
- rēgī pācem quam postulābat neque abnuere neque pollicērī
- he neither refused nor promised the king the peace he was asking for
94 CE – 96 CE,
Statius,
Achilleid 1.917:
- Nec tamen abnuerit generō sē iungere tālī.
- Nor will he refuse to join with such a son in law.
c. 56 CE – 117 CE,
Tacitus,
Annals 13.14:
- Nōn abnuere se, quīn cūncta īnfēlīcīs domūs mala patefīerent, suae in prīmīs nūptiae, suum venēficium.
- She didn't reject that all the evils of the unhappy house be made known, her marriage first of all, and her poisoning.
- 248 CE – 258 CE, Cyprian, Letters 65.3 in Corpus Vindobonense (volume III, part 2), Franz Pauly, Vienna (1871), page 724, lines 3–4:
Nec mīrum sī cōnsilia nostra aut Dominī praecepta nunc abnuunt quī Dominum negāvērunt.- No wonder that those who denied the Lord now reject our decisions or the Lord's teachings.
- (poetic or post-classical, chiefly of inanimate subjects) to not admit of
- (military, very rare) to decline service
27 BCE – 25 BCE,
Titus Livius,
Ab Urbe Condita 27.49.3:
- Ille fessōs abnuentēsque taediō et labōre nunc precandō, nunc castigandō accendit.
- It was he who, now by entreaties, now by chastising, stimulated the soldiers, tired and declining service due to weariness and difficulty.
- to deny
c. 99 BCE – 55 BCE,
Lucretius,
De rerum natura 3.640–641:
- At quod scinditur et partīs discēdit in ūllās,
scīlicet aeternam sibi nātūram abnuit esse.- But if something breaks and separates into any parts,
it surely denies having an eternal nature.
c. 77 CE – 79 CE,
Pliny the Elder,
Naturalis Historia 10.70.137:
- Quī crēdat ista, et Melampodī profectō augurī aurēs lambendō dedisse intellēctum avium sermōnis dracōnes nōn abnuat.
- Anyone who would believe these would also surely not deny that serpents gave Melampus the augur the understanding of bird language by means of licking his ears.
c. 125 CE – 180 CE,
Apuleius,
Metamorphoses 2.27:
- Ēmeditātīs ad haec illa flētibus quamque sānctissimē poterat adiūrāns cūncta nūmina, tantum scelus abnuēbat.
- With cries devised just for this, swearing by all the gods as solemnly as she could, she denied having committed such a crime.
- c. 310 CE, Lactantius, Divinarum Institutionum Epitome 31 (36) in Corpus Vindobonense (volume IXX), Samuel Brandt, Vienna (1890), page 706, lines 10–12:
- Epicūrī doctrīna haec est inprīmīs, nullam esse prōvidentiam, et īdem deōs esse nōn abnuit: utrumque contrā ratiōnem.
- Chiefly, the doctrine of Epicurus is that there is no Providence, and he also denies not the existence of gods: both go against reason.
Usage notes
The figurative meaning has almost completely overtaken the literal one.
The word is a favourite of Livy and Tacitus. Older authors prefer the negative formula “haud abnuō”, while authors after the time of Tacitus use “nōn abnuō”.
Conjugation
Derived terms
Descendants
References
- “abnuo”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “abnuo”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- abnuo in Enrico Olivetti, editor (2003-2024), Dizionario Latino, Olivetti Media Communication
- abnuo in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- “abnuō” in volume 1, column 112, line 52 in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present