disown
Americanverb (used with object)
-
disowns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
disowned,
past participle, past
-
disowning
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
disownsimple
-
disownssimple
-
have disownedperfect
-
has disownedperfect
-
am disowningprogressive
-
are disowningprogressive
-
is disowningprogressive
-
have been disowningperfect progressive
-
has been disowningperfect progressive
Past
-
disownedsimple
-
had disownedperfect
-
was disowningprogressive
-
were disowningprogressive
-
had been disowningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of disown
Explanation
To disown someone is to reject them. If you disown your brother, you refuse to have anything to do with him: not only do you not speak or have contact, but it's as if he's no longer related to you. When one person disowns another, it's because of some terrible argument or deep-rooted conflict. Although it's uncommon to disown another person, when it happens it's usually a family member who's cast off. Your mom might threaten to disown you after you drive her car into the mailbox, but she's probably not serious. Disown takes the root word own, meaning "to have or to hold," and adds the Latin prefix dis, "not" or "do the opposite of."
Vocabulary lists containing disown
The Prince and the Dressmaker
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Ship Breaker
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So Far from the Bamboo Grove
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Just disown it and make a spectacle of disowning it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
“My family would disown me,” he told the network in an email.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 29, 2023
But he may be the first to attempt to disown his immediate predecessors as party leader.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2023
In a time where I thought that my whole family would disown me, they didn’t.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2023
“Would you disown me, your honest and true Ophelia?”
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
If the ships are falsely flagged or flagged to a country that disowns them, the tankers can be subject to U.S. jurisdiction while in international waters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
You can detect the traces of the predecessor in the inheritor, even if the inheritor disowns any knowledge of the inheritance.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 16, 2019
He also excavates the star's psyche to reveal a vulnerable, anxious soul - who disowns his birth name, Farrokh Bulsara, but whose alter-ego only comes alive in the spotlight.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2018
Nanjiani’s acceptance into his girlfriend’s family is equally fraught, even if no one disowns anyone.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 21, 2017
Nature disowns the restriction; I cannot smother her dictates with the polity of governments, and fall in, or out of love, as the law directs.
From John Bull The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts by George Colman
“Wagner went from a powerful special-forces group to a disowned network which seems to be falling into organized crime,” said Lou Osborn, an investigator with the Switzerland-based nonprofit Inpact, which tracks Wagner’s activities in Africa.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
Her family tried to persuade her to come back, but when nothing came of it they disowned her, according to SK SOS.
From BBC ● Nov. 22, 2025
In her memoir, Erivo writes at length about her estrangement from her father, who disowned her when she was 16 after an argument in a London train station.
From Salon ● Nov. 18, 2025
But uncertainty surrounds the royal succession, with no public announcement of an heir to the current king -- among his seven children, four have been officially disowned.
From Barron's ● Oct. 25, 2025
Nana’s own father, who was a lowly stone carver in the nearby village of Gul Daman, disowned her.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
He was born in Los Angeles to a white American mother and a Japanese father, the latter effectively disowning him while he was still in the womb.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026
The families of both Abu Shabab and Al-Astal issued statements disowning them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2025
The trend is so pronounced that some Chinese activists have taken to making preemptive “if I lose my freedom” videos, disowning any future “confessions” they might be forced to make.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 22, 2021
However, the charity insisted it was not "disowning Sir Winston" and said its former name was "confusing to people and did not explain what we do".
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2021
Mom thought it was a great plan, but Dad accused Lori of stealing his children and declared he was disowning her.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
