disabuse
verb
Did you know?
Taken as a product of its parts, one might assume that disabuse means “to not abuse.” While the usage has changed over the years, that assumption isn’t entirely wrong. We know the verb abuse as a word with various meanings having to do with bad physical or verbal treatment, as well as incorrect or excessive use, but when disabuse first appeared in the 17th century, there was a sense of abuse, now obsolete, that meant “to deceive.” Francis Bacon used that meaning, for example, when he wrote in 1605, “You are much abused if you think your virtue can withstand the King’s power.” The prefix dis- has the sense of undoing the effect of a verb, so it’s logical that disabuse means “to undeceive.” English speakers didn’t come up with the idea of joining dis- to abuse all on their own, however. It was the French who first appended their prefix dés- to their verb abuser; our disabuse is modeled after the French word désabuser.
Examples of disabuse in a Sentence
Anonymous, Vogue, 10 May 2025
To do this, the U.S. policymakers must first disabuse themselves of the notion that there can be a neat line drawn between what happens within Yemen and what happens in the Red Sea or the broader region, particularly in the Gulf.
—April Longley Alley, Foreign Affairs, 9 May 2025
Those who felt that part one would have been better suited to a television series will find little to disabuse them of that notion in this installment, which intercuts among its disparate characters and story strands even more rapidly.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 10 Feb. 2025
Doing so would disabuse Iranian officials of any notion that Biden officials’ past criticism of Trump’s maximum pressure approach means that sanctions will simply be permitted to weaken or lapse in the absence of a deal.
—Michael Singh, Foreign Affairs, 25 Oct. 2021
See All Example Sentences for disabuse
Cite this Entry
“Disabuse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disabuse. Accessed 30 Jun. 2025.
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disabuse
verb
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