Read full poem →Love-snared Calypso is supposed to pray
A mortal nymph's[326] refusing lord to stay.
Who doubts, with Peleus Thetis did consort,
Dictionary Entry
The act of not accepting or agreeing to something offered or requested.
In a Sentence
“The child was refusing to eat his vegetables, despite his parents' pleas.”
Origin
From Old French 'refuser', ultimately from Latin 'refutare' (to drive back, repel, refute).
Common Phrases
Still being gathered for this entry.
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Related Words
Poetry examples for “refusing”
Excerpts from the ReadingWillow English Library collection.
Read full poem →should be pronounced in two 94. so stiff, in refusing to
Read full poem →And such may no man, but by shunning, hold.
Refuse it, till refusing be despair;
And thou shalt feel the phantom in thy hair.'
Read full poem →like a shining bait! Rupert Brooke will have none of it;
but at a turn of the verse he is back at it, examining, tasting, refusing.
In those alternate drives of the thought in his South Sea idyl
Read full poem →of it; but at a turn of the verse he is back at it, ex-
amining, tasting, refusing. In those alternate
drives of the thought in his South Sea idyl (clever
Read full poem →A prolonging of a dying death,
Or a refusing of a desir'd thing.
Much were it better for to be plain
Read full poem →Day upon day and year upon year O city, walking your streets,
Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time refusing to give me up,
Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul, you give me forever
Read full poem →To you, O FREEDOM, purport of all!
(You that elude me most—refusing to be caught in songs of mine,)
I offer all to you.