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Impugn, pugnacious, pugilist: them’s fightin’ words, literally. All three words trace back to the Latin noun pugnus, meaning “fist.” Though they floated like butterflies down different paths into English from that shared source, each stings like a bee (so to speak) in its own way. The noun pugilist refers to a fighter or boxer, while the adjective pugnacious describes someone showing a readiness or desire to fight or argue. The verb impugn today has belligerent implications, albeit of the verbal jousting kind, but in its earliest known English uses in the 1300s, impugn could refer to a physical attack (as in, “the troops impugned the city”) as well as to assaults involving verbal contradiction or dispute. Over time, though, the sense of literal battling has become obsolete while the “assailing by words or arguments” sense has endured.
Examples of impugn in a Sentence
Eric Adler, Kansas City Star, 22 Sep. 2025
Ehlers’ duty as a public official includes upholding and respecting the legal process, not impugning it.
—U T Readers, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Sep. 2025
The duel did not happen because a Parisian layman’s jury ruled that Drayton couldn’t legally say he was impugned by Mr. Borrowe, so Drayton instead fled Europe by buying passage on the steamship Majestic at Liverpool.
—Alexis Nedd, IndieWire, 2 July 2025
Who suspected the argument would impugn the motives and integrity of the artists who made it?
—Armond White, National Review, 28 Mar. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Impugn.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/impugn. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
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impugn
verb
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