abrogate
verb
Peter M Eckman
Did you know?
If you can't simply wish something out of existence, the next best thing might be to "propose it away." That's more or less what abrogate lets you do—etymologically speaking, at least. Abrogate comes from the Latin root rogāre, which means "to ask, ask an assembly for approval of," and ab-, meaning "from" or "away." Proposals aside, there’s no abrogating our responsibility to report that rogāre is the root of a number of English words, including prerogative, derogatory, arrogant, surrogate, and interrogate. We'll also not abrogate our responsibility to warn against confusing abrogate with a similar word: arrogate means "to claim or seize without justification," as in "a group arrogating power to itself." Arrogate too can be traced back to rogāre.
Did you know?
Should you abdicate, abrogate, abjure, or just resign?
Several words may be confused with abdicate through either a similarity of sound or of meaning. Among these are abrogate, abjure, and resign. All of these words have multiple meanings that are quite distinct from one another, yet each also has a degree of semantic overlap that renders them nearly synonymous with at least one of the others.
Abdicate is most often used to describe a head of state or member of a royal family voluntarily renouncing a position. It may also refer to the act of failing to fulfill a duty a responsibility. It shares this second meaning with abrogate (although the “failing to fulfill one’s duty” sense of this word is more common in the United Kingdom than in the United States). The senses of abrogate most commonly found are “to annul” or “to do away with.”
Abjure may be used to mean “to abstain from” or “to give up,” but often is used with the meaning of “to disclaim formally or renounce upon oath” (it comes from the Latin jurare, meaning “to swear”).
And finally, resign is often used with the meaning of “to give up one’s office or position.”
Despite the similarities among these words, they tend to be used in fairly specific settings. You would not typically tell your employer that you are abdicating your position in order to look for a better job; you would say that you are resigning. And when the king of a country renounces his claim on the throne to marry his one true love, he would be said to abdicate, rather than resign, his position.
Examples of abrogate in a Sentence
Business Week, 12 Nov. 2001
We may not always like what we hear but we are always the poorer if we close down dialogue; if we abrogate free speech, and the open exchange of ideas.
—Nikki Giovanni, Sacred Cows … and Other Edibles, 1988
For their part, some of the pipeline companies saddled with these contracts for high-priced, deregulated gas have declared that they will simply abrogate them …
—Barry Commoner, New Yorker, 2 May 1983
The company's directors are accused of abrogating their responsibilities.
the U.S. Congress can abrogate old treaties that are unfair to Native Americans
U T Readers, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 July 2025
He is entitled to all protections that are due under the Constitution, which the disappearance of him to El Salvador abrogated.
—New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 8 June 2025
That law, however, was abrogated in 1918, which means there is currently no canon law on the subject, per Edward Peters, a professor of canon law at Sacred Heart seminary in Detroit.
—Felix Salmon, Axios, 22 Apr. 2025
The edict was abrogated in 1918, according to canon law expert Edward Peters of Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary.
—Marc Ramirez, USA Today, 4 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for abrogate
Cite this Entry
“Abrogate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abrogate. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
abrogate
verb
Legal Definition
Latin abrogare, from ab- off + rogare ask, ask for approval of (a law)
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