Renounce or reject (something desired or valuable)
'In passages such as these, his most distinctive, Thackeray comes perilously near abnegating his responsibility as a human being, let alone as a moralist or satirist.'
'Feed no more blossoms to the wind, abnegate the constellations, negate the sea and what is left of your world?'
'They have abnegated all morality and all fellow feeling for the rest of mankind.'
'Greeks like Aristotle, who opposed atomism, equated it with a blind desire to abnegate the governance of Nature in favour of pure chance.'
'He is undermining the suffering of victims and abnegating his responsibility as the leader of this country's Catholics.'
'Young's art simultaneously unfolds, extends, abnegates, and defies authorship and receivership - all in one fell swoop.'
'The flipside is that participation is seductive and may effectively co-opt employees into abnegating their interests and policing themselves in toxic ways.'
'Another criticism is that they sentimentalise the past or make it antiquarian by abnegating the context and concentrating on the artefacts.'
'Whatever life and value this town ever possessed have now been abnegated.'
((p. pr. & vb. n.) of Abnegate)
Origin:
Early 17th century: from Latin abnegat- ‘renounced’, from the verb abnegare, from ab- ‘away, off’ + negare ‘deny’.
