rejection
Americannoun
-
the act or process of rejecting.
- Synonyms:
- elimination, dismissal, refusal
-
the state of being rejected.
- Synonyms:
- elimination, dismissal, refusal
-
something that is rejected.
Discover More
Rejection is the most serious problem faced in surgery involving organ transplants. Drugs are used to suppress the immune system after organ transplant in order to prevent the rejection of and eventual death of the transplanted tissue.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of rejection
First recorded in 1545–55; from Latin rējectiōn-, stem of rējectiō “a throwing back”; equivalent to reject + -ion
Explanation
The noun rejection can refer to the actual act of rejecting something or to the feeling one has after being rejected. In other words, you might have feelings of rejection after experiencing the rejection of others. The Latin noun rēicere, which means "to throw back," is the ancestor of the word rejection. Nobody likes to feel the rejection of being excluded. The word rejection became popular in psychology in 1931, when parental rejection was seen as a motivation of bad behavior in children. The word found a medical meaning by 1943, as the body's refusal to accept a transplant.
Vocabulary lists containing rejection
The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 2
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
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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.
The second rejection marked the completion of a bearish island reversal, confirmed by a 3% gap down on October 30.
From Barron's • Jun. 5, 2026
“Another Dimension” is his answer to the years of rejection, pain and incandescent ire, but transmuted into a vibrant, avant-garde, genre-defying gaping wound found within 11 tight tracks.
From Salon • Jun. 5, 2026
She says they were pitched as giving single people "access to a virtually infinite pool of strangers" and sparing them "from the possibility of rejection".
From BBC • Jun. 4, 2026
After graduation, I was cast in a “Hannah Montana” episode and did some short films, but there also was rejection, which brought on body dysmorphia.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 2, 2026
As a power move, it is so lame—rejecting his rejection.
From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti
Definitions 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.
