Word of the Day: Refuse
To refuse is to say “no.” A person who refuses does not cooperate or participate in an activity largely out of principal or a strongly held belief, but sometimes a person refuses to do something out of fear or caution.
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- I refuse.
- I refuse to do that.
- I absolutely refuse to do that. I won’t do it.
- She refuses to go along with the idea.
- She refused to do what everyone else was doing.
- The children refused to eat their broccoli.
- The students refused to cooperate with the teacher.
- Kevin refuses to believe that climate change is affected by human activity.
- If someone asks you to do something that you don’t want to do, just refuse.
The word “refusal” is a noun:
- The woman’s refusal to cooperate with the police resulted in a night in jail.
- The child’s refusal to eat his vegetables was met with a stony silence from his mother.
- When the young man asked the girl to go out with him, he expected a refusal but instead was surprised by her quick acceptance.
The word “refuse” is a noun. Refuse is garbage. The meaning and pronunciation of “refuse” is different from “refuse,” but both words are spelled the same way.
- Please put your refuse in the garbage bins.
- The park was strewn with refuse following the concert.
- “Give me the tired, the poor…the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” (an exerpt from The New Collosus.)
Essential English Dictionary
Visit the Popular English Words Beginning with R page to see the list of all words starting with letter R. For seeing the HiCafe dictionary, visit the Popular English Words with Meaning page.
