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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
refuse
I.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be refused bail
▪ Relatively few defendants are refused bail.
be refused membership (=not be accepted as a member)
▪ She was refused membership of the club because she was a woman.
categorically deny/refuse etc sth
▪ He has categorically denied his guilt all along.
refuse disposalformal (also rubbish disposal British English garbage disposal American English) (= getting rid of things people throw out of houses, shops etc)
▪ Refuse disposal is the responsibility of county councils.
refuse sb credit
▪ You may be refused credit if you have a bad financial record.
refuse to admit sth
▪ He refused to admit that it was his fault.
refuse to co-operate
▪ If you refuse to co-operate, I’ll kill you.
refuse to obey
▪ Many people felt the law was unfair, and refused to obey it.
refuse (your) consent
▪ When the firm applied for consent to build on the site, it was refused.
refused admission
▪ The young men tried to enter a nightclub but were refused admission.
refused point-blank
▪ He refused point-blank to identify his accomplices.
refused to disclose
▪ He refused to disclose the identity of the politician.
refused to talk
▪ Even under torture, Maskell refused to talk.
refuse/deny sb a visa
▪ The Lebanese embassy refused him a visa.
refuse/deny (sb) entry (=stop someone entering)
▪ He was refused entry to the club because he was wearing trainers.
refuse/deny (sb) permission
▪ Betty's father refused her permission to attend the dance.
refuse/reject a request (also turn down sb’s request)
▪ He rejected their request for a meeting.
▪ This request was turned down because of the cost.
refuse/reject/turn down an application (=say no to an application)
▪ Their planning application was rejected because of a lack of parking facilities.
refuse/turn down an invitation (also decline an invitationformal)
▪ She turned down an invitation to take part in a televised debate.
tax/ticket/debt/refuse collector
turn down/refuse/reject/decline an offer (=say no to it)
▪ She declined the offer of a lift.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
still
▪ It still refuses to join the United Nations, though it is happy to welcome its free-spending bureaucracies in Geneva.
▪ Imam Malik still refused to take back his words.
▪ It still refuses to join peacekeeping operations in less harmonious countries.
▪ Mulholland, of course, knew this, but still refused to build the dam at Long Valley.
▪ Campaigners against the arms trade also voiced concern that the Government is still refusing to allow Parliament proper scrutiny of exports.
▪ And immigration is still refusing to see that this man deserves consideration for his sacrifice.
▪ I do about three hundred sit-ups a day and it still refuses to firm up, but what else can I do?
▪ Two kids still refused to write unless I helped them right then and there.
■ NOUN
offer
▪ Maybe he's moonlighting on an offer he couldn't refuse.
▪ The offer of food was refused but food came anyway.
▪ Please contact the Office if you are interested-no reasonable offer will be refused!
▪ As the bribe would hardly benefit a dead man, not surprisingly the offer was refused.
▪ It was so hot and dry, another party on Gimer made us an offer we couldn't refuse.
▪ And make him an offer he couldn't refuse.
▪ Stratton was presented with an offer he could hardly refuse.
permission
▪ Had he refused her permission to marry?
▪ However, one month after this deadline Judge Gilbert Thiel in Nancy refused permission for the objects to leave the city.
▪ He faced up to the notorious Chelsea Boot Boys with an electrified fence but was refused permission to switch it on.
▪ Members of the economic development and planning subcommittee voted to refuse planning permission after a site visit yesterday.
▪ The reasons for the Council's decision to refuse permission for the development are set out in the attached schedule.
▪ In another case, the committee has refused permission for health authorities to link their computer files with personal tax records.
▪ The council says a holy coal house doesn't qualify as a home improvement and has refused planning permission.
▪ Furthermore, an applicant who had been refused planning permission could appeal to the ministry.
request
▪ The driver refused her requests for his number, and dumped her at the next stop.
▪ A judge refused last week a request by rival insurers to remove the Pennsylvania regulator from ruling on the case.
▪ It has refused the Cree's request for an undertaking not to commence logging until their outstanding land claim has been settled.
▪ To date, the Planning Department has refused the request, choosing instead to prepare a brief addendum.
▪ The small number of refused requests may appear unusual.
▪ But the judge refused a prosecution request to keep the accused rapist in jail by increasing his bail to $ 1 million.
▪ Technically she might also refuse a request for a dissolution, although it is hard to imagine her ever doing so.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
flatly refuse/deny/oppose etc sth
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He flatly refuses any offers of financial help.
▪ He never refuses a drink, does he?
▪ He tried to persuade her to come with him, but she refused.
▪ He was unable to attend the meeting in Moscow, because the Russian authorities had refused him a visa.
▪ I asked Stevie if she would help us, but she refused.
▪ If they refuse to leave, call the police.
▪ Judge Eyck refused his request for bail.
▪ Mother flatly refused to see the doctor.
▪ Ms. Knight refused to accept the manager's apology.
▪ Over 2,000 applications for political asylum were refused last year.
▪ Some banks are threatening to refuse loans to anyone who cannot provide suitable guarantees.
▪ Sutton refused food in protest against conditions in the prison.
▪ The church refused to give legitimacy to the new state.
▪ The city is refusing contracts to firms that do not practice an equal opportunities policy.
▪ The offer was so good how could I refuse?
▪ Under the law, doctors cannot refuse patients access to their own medical records.
▪ You wouldn't refuse an old friend a favour, would you?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ It is understood that a number of applications for advance clearance under s 707 for such arrangements have been refused.
▪ Players were pressing and self-doubt was evident, especially when shots refused to drop.
▪ She refused his advances and confounded a multitude of scholars assembled by him to overcome her scruples.
▪ The 1976 Act also makes a radical change as regards the grounds for granting or refusing an application for a licence.
▪ The charge was dropped when Lewinksy refused to testify.
▪ The committee was forcing Dozoretz to attend Thursday's hearing to publicly refuse to testify.
▪ The following day, doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital refused to operate because the parents had not given consent.
▪ Via his lawyer, Sam refused to give Clare money because he didn't want a divorce.
II.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
domestic
▪ As with domestic refuse, the problems of methane gas generation also exist when disposing of industrial waste underground.
▪ This was made up of the organic residues of farms, forestry, industry and domestic refuse.
▪ Unlike habitation sites, they have little domestic refuse and, unlike cemetery sites, they do not normally contain burials.
■ NOUN
collection
▪ A number of local authorities, for example, put out refuse collection to private tender.
▪ The main tasks of the non-metropolitan districts were concerned with housing and basic services such as street cleaning and refuse collection.
▪ But it was opposed by the Senate's Environment Committee, industry, local authority refuse collection agencies and environmentalists.
collector
▪ Aylesbury's refuse collectors are out on the job around seven hours a day.
▪ This was demonstrated in the resettlement of Vila Planetario, a squatter settlement of refuse collectors in the centre of the city.
▪ Many were formed from the grouping together of small refuse collectors.
▪ Whether one considers lawyers and doctors as more important than farm labourers and refuse collectors is simply a matter of opinion.
household
▪ This aims to reduce the mounting flood of household refuse, which currently stands at 70 million tonnes a year.
▪ Talk is of household refuse trains going back to the moth-balled Gobowen to Nanbrynmawr line - from Manchester.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
Refuse collection has been seriously affected by the strike.
▪ facilities for recycling household refuse
▪ Heaps of decaying refuse littered every street.
▪ We are gradually developing safer and more effective methods of refuse disposal.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Paul's guide to this mighty sauce is three large refuse sacks of breadcrumbs to 60 pints of milk.
▪ The colonies were a disposal area for social refuse.
▪ This was made up of the organic residues of farms, forestry, industry and domestic refuse.
▪ Workers on Monday mucked out basement and main-floor refuse left by the water.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Refuse

Refuse \Re*fuse"\ (r?*f?z"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Refused (-f?zd"); p. pr. & vb. n. Refusing.] [F. refuser, either from (assumed) LL. refusare to refuse, v. freq. of L. refundere to pour back, give back, restore (see Refund to repay), or. fr. L. recusare to decline, refuse cf. Accuse, Ruse), influenced by L. refutare to drive back, repel, refute. Cf. Refute.]

  1. To deny, as a request, demand, invitation, or command; to decline to do or grant.

    That never yet refused your hest.
    --Chaucer.

  2. (Mil.) To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the center, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular aligment when troops ar? about to engage the enemy; as, to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks.

  3. To decline to accept; to reject; to deny the request or petition of; as, to refuse a suitor.

    The cunning workman never doth refuse The meanest tool that he may chance to use.
    --Herbert.

  4. To disown. [Obs.] ``Refuse thy name.''
    --Shak.

Refuse

Refuse \Re*fuse"\, v. i. To deny compliance; not to comply.

Too proud to ask, too humble to refuse.
--Garth.

If ye refuse . . . ye shall be devoured with the sword.
--Isa. i. 20.

Refuse

Refuse \Re*fuse"\, n. Refusal. [Obs.]
--Fairfax.

Refuse

Refuse \Ref"use\, a. Refused; rejected; hence; left as unworthy of acceptance; of no value; worthless.

Everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
--1. Sam. xv. 9.

Refuse

Refuse \Ref`use\ (r?f"?s;277), n. [F. refus refusal, also, that which is refused. See Refuse to deny.] That which is refused or rejected as useless; waste or worthless matter.

Syn: Dregs; sediment; scum; recrement; dross.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
refuse

c.1300, from Old French refuser "reject, disregard, avoid" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *refusare, frequentative form from past participle stem of Latin refundere "pour back, give back" (see refund (v.)). Related: Refused; refusing.

refuse

mid-14c., "an outcast;" mid-14c., "a rejected thing, waste material, trash," from Old French refus "waste product, rubbish; refusal, denial, rejection," a back-formation from the past participle of refuser (see refuse (v.)). As an adjective from late 14c., "despised, rejected;" early 15c., "of low quality."

Wiktionary
refuse

Etymology 1

  1. discarded, rejected. n. (context UK English) Collectively, items or material that have been discarded; rubbish, garbage. Etymology 2

    n. (context obsolete English) refusal v

  2. (context transitive English) To decline (a request or demand).

WordNet
refuse
  1. n. food that is discarded (as from a kitchen) [syn: garbage, food waste, scraps]

  2. v. show unwillingness towards; "he declined to join the group on a hike" [syn: decline] [ant: accept]

  3. refuse to accept; "He refused my offer of hospitality" [syn: reject, pass up, turn down, decline] [ant: accept]

  4. elude, especially in a baffling way; "This behavior defies explanation" [syn: defy, resist] [ant: lend oneself]

  5. refuse to let have; "She denies me every pleasure"; "he denies her her weekly allowance" [syn: deny] [ant: allow]

  6. resist immunologically the introduction of some foreign tissue or organ; "His body rejected the liver of the donor" [syn: resist, reject]

  7. refuse entrance or membership; "They turned away hundreds of fans"; "Black people were often rejected by country clubs" [syn: reject, turn down, turn away] [ant: admit]

Usage examples of "refuse".

Captain Nekrasov refused to accommodate me, but his sergeant proved far more generous with the facts.

Jeanneney and Herriot respectively, refused to attend the social functions accorded the Nazi visitor.

What it had refused the Allies the year before it accorded to Nazi Germany.

Bass refused, usually because Enron wanted accounting results divorced from economics.

It was wider than an urban walkway, so she could easily have gone upright, but her acrophobia refused to allow her to let go with her hands.

NSA was the unwanted stepchild of powerful spymasters such as Allen Dulles, who refused its director a seat on the Intelligence Advisory Committee.

I could not imagine a more afflictive punishment than for my mother to refuse to kiss me at night: the very idea was terrible.

I am convinced, have it said of you, that, after having affronted a noble peer, you refuse him satisfaction.

Swedish majesty, by the advice of the senate, thought proper to refuse complying with this request, alleging, that as the crown of Sweden was one of the principal guarantees of the treaty of Westphalia, it would be highly improper to take such a step in favour of a prince who had not only broke the laws and constitution of the empire, in refusing to furnish his contingent, but had even assisted, with his troops, a power known to be its declared enemy.

Eric sometimes beat the walls with his fists or shrieked when he was denied a game or treat, and since he wasted his own allotment, his mother often had to refuse his requests for part of hers.

It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the malice of infidelity, that the Christians allured into their party the most atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to wash away, in the water of baptism, the guilt of their past conduct, for which the temples of the gods refused to grant them any expiation.

The love of rapine and war allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he sternly refused the payment of the accustomed subsidies.

Congress of the United States, which failed or refused to exercise its power and authority to annul the same.

Reichstag refused to renew the antisocialist laws, Engels looked confidently to these two disciples to lead the SPD on the right course.

Ranging the continent literally from Georgia to Maine, with all his weaknesses and indiscretions, and with his incomparable eloquence, welcomed by every sect, yet refusing an exclusive allegiance to any, Whitefield exercised a true apostolate, bearing daily the care of all the churches, and becoming a messenger of mutual fellowship not only between the ends of the continent, but between the Christians of two hemispheres.