noun
definition
A denial of knowledge, relationship, and/or responsibility towards something (or someone).
Examples of disavowal in a Sentence
It accepted the status quo as a working basis, but no amount of pressure could wring from it a disavowal of Trumbic and his colleagues.
Both combatants had, according to the absurd habit of the time, to disown their works, Desfontaines's disavowal being formal and procured by the exertion of all Voltaire's own influence both at home and abroad.
With some difficulty Bedford effected a formal reconciliation at Leicester in March 1426, and forced Humphrey to accept Beaufort's disavowal.
The Discourse on the Dissensions in Athens and Rome (September 1701), written to repel the tactics of the Tory commons in their attack on the Partition Treaties "without humour and without satire," and intended as a dissuasive from the pending impeachment of Somers, Orford, Halifax and Portland, received the honour, extraordinary for the maiden publication of a young politician, of being generally attributed to Somers himself or to Burnet, the latter of whom found a public disavowal necessary.
The accusation against him was that he had written in contravention of the decree of 1616, and in defiance of the command of the Holy Office communicated to him by Cardinal Bellarmin; and his defence consisted mainly in a disavowal of his opinions, and an appeal to his good intentions.
The test was carefully framed so as to include no disavowal of religious principles, and was " universally unscrupled, even by the generality of great professors and ministers too," says Sheilds, an advanced extremist.
Above all, he now, being comparatively secure in position, engaged much more strongly in public controversies, and resorted less to his old labyrinthine tricks of disavowal, garbled publication and private libel.
The resemblance, both in title and in principles, of his book to Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity, led to a prompt disavowal on Locke's part of the supposed identity of opinions, and subsequently to the famous controversy between Stillingfleet and the philosopher.