confute

Etymology

From Middle French confuter, from Latin confūtāre.

verb

  1. (transitive, now rare) To show (something or someone) to be false or wrong; to disprove or refute.
    Procatalepsis is a forme of speech by which the Orator perceiving aforehand what might be objected against him, and hurt him, doth confute it before it be spoken […]. 1593, Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence
    bad books … to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica
    The conjecture of [Greenland] jointing on the east with Spitzberg, Nova-zembla, and Tartary, is pretty well, if not entirely, confuted by the new discoveries of the Dutch and Russians. 1767, David Cranz, A History of Greenland

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