abjure

American  

[ab-joor, -jur] / æbˈdʒʊər, -ˈdʒɜr /

verb (used with object)

• abjures,
  present (3rd person singular)
• abjured,
  past participle,  past
• abjuring
  present participle

1. to renounce, repudiate, or retract, especially with formal solemnity; recant.

   to abjure one's errors.

2. to renounce or give up under oath; forswear.

   to abjure allegiance.

3. to avoid or shun.

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abjure British  

/ əbˈdʒʊə /

verb

1. to renounce or retract, esp formally, solemnly, or under oath

2. to abstain from or reject

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• abjuration
  noun
• abjurer
  noun
• abjuratory
  adjective
• nonabjuratory
  adjective
• unabjuratory
  adjective
• unabjured
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• abjuring
  present
• abjured
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• abjure
  simple
• abjures
  simple
• have abjured
  perfect
• has abjured
  perfect
• am abjuring
  progressive
• are abjuring
  progressive
• is abjuring
  progressive
• have been abjuring
  perfect progressive
• has been abjuring
  perfect progressive

Past

• abjured
  simple
• had abjured
  perfect
• was abjuring
  progressive
• were abjuring
  progressive
• had been abjuring
  perfect progressive

Future

• will abjure
  simple
• will have abjured
  perfect
• will be abjuring
  progressive
• will have been abjuring
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of abjure

1400–50; late Middle English < Latin abjūrāre to deny on oath, equivalent to ab- ab- + jūrāre to swear; see jury ¹

Explanation

Abjure means to swear off, and it applies to something you once believed. You can abjure a religious faith, you can abjure your love of another person, and you can abjure the practice of using excessive force in interrogation. Abjure is a more dramatic way to declare your rejection of something you once felt or believed. When you see its Latin roots, it makes sense: from ab- (meaning "away") and jurare ("to swear"). When you abjure something, you swear it away and dissociate yourself with it. You might abjure the field of astrology after receiving a bad fortune, or you might abjure marriage after a bitter divorce.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

abjure abjures abjured abjuring

Thus many find it fashionable to abjure party labels, insisting they vote “for the man” or “the woman,” as the case may be, independent of any partisan considerations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2022

By 1907, when Sargent was 51, he’d had enough: “No more paughtraits,” he wrote in a now-famous note, “I abhor and abjure them and hope never to do another especially of the Upper Classe.”

From Washington Post ● Mar. 5, 2020

People who are otherwise deemed sceptical abjure their reason and believe in miracles.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 10, 2019

Johnson managed to abjure his past and, on the march toward an exceptionally successful career, leave it behind.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 12, 2018

The Baptismal water affects the heart through the medium of the eye, and enforces the worshipper's obligation to abjure the world, and to be pure as Christ is pure.

From The Portland Sketch Book by Various

India abjures formal alliances, which it sees as constraints on its independence.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

Because the play abjures psychology in favor of gesture, much as Swan apparently did in his choreopoems, nothing tells us whether he is in on the joke.

From New York Times ● May 2, 2019

Or, make that drama avoidance; this is a novel that abjures not just plot twists but plot advances.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2014

He abjures his cow pies for sunblush tomato and goat's cheese baguettes and begins to use a Remington Philishave.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 18, 2012

Pauline shrugged her shoulders, in the manner of one who thinks better of the angry mood, and handsomely abjures it.

From The Adventures of a Widow A Novel by Edgar Fawcett

Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman did not immediately say whether he would retry McGhee for the murders, nor whether he would again seek the death penalty, which his predecessor abjured.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2025

Tunisia's army has historically abjured a political role and Saied has not yet tested the security forces by trying to mobilise them for a major crackdown on dissent.

From Reuters ● Dec. 18, 2022

His three Republican successors did not follow suit, Calvin Coolidge especially abjured such monarchical power.

From Fox News ● Jan. 10, 2019

LBJ might have been a man of elastic morality, but he pretty much kept to his ranch, wrote the required memoir and abjured buck-raking.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 1, 2015

In a sober ceremony, the Mexica abjured their old religion and embraced Christianity.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

As for abjuring Eurocentricity, the author himself refers to the “four allies plus China” that received permanent Security Council seats in 1945.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 9, 2026

That did not mean abjuring love as a subject, but rather ennobling it while understanding its limitations.

From New York Times ● Feb. 26, 2018

Later Nate cites an additional, darker reason for abjuring female companionship: “You care a damn about a woman then you keep her as far away from this life as possible.”

From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2017

I have no logical or moral explanation for my abjuring of e-readers.

From Slate ● Jun. 17, 2015

After a royalist insurrection in 1655, a proclamation was issued announcing that persons suspected of Roman Catholicism would be required to take an oath abjuring the papal authority and transubstantiation.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William" by Various