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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
forswear
verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Both sides agreed to forswear all acts of terrorism.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And it will force Nico to forswear any use of my statement to Molto.
▪ But to do that he had to forswear his ... abilities.
▪ His refusal to forswear moonshine, however, mocked her with the most painful failure of all.
▪ It is currently fashionable to forswear flesh eating in the interests of animal rights or a lower cholesterol level.
▪ It was the Biblical apple with which man was seduced to forswear his innocence in order to gain knowledge and sexuality.
▪ Secondly, Hu suggests that the Fed should forswear intervening directly in equities or equity derivatives.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Forswear

Forswear \For*swear"\, v. t. [imp. Forswore; p. p. Forsworn; p. pr. & vb. n. Forswearing.] [OE. forsweren, forswerien, AS. forswerian; pref. for- + swerian to swear. See For-, and Swear, v. i.]

  1. To reject or renounce upon oath; hence, to renounce earnestly, determinedly, or with protestations.

    I . . . do forswear her.
    --Shak.

  2. To deny upon oath.

    Like innocence, and as serenely bold As truth, how loudly he forswears thy gold!
    --Dryden.

    To forswear one's self, to swear falsely; to perjure one's self. ``Thou shalt not forswear thyself.''
    --Matt. v. 3

  3. Syn: See Perjure.

Forswear

Forswear \For*swear"\, v. i. To swear falsely; to commit perjury.
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
forswear

Old English forswerian "swear falsely" (intransitive), also "abandon or renounce on oath" (transitive), from for- "completely" + swerian "to swear" (see swear (v.)). Related: Forswore; forsworn; forswearing.

Wiktionary
forswear

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To renounce or deny something, especially under oath. 2 (context intransitive English) To commit perjury.

WordNet
forswear
  1. v. formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief, usually under pressure; "He retracted his earlier statements about his religion"; "She abjured her beliefs" [syn: abjure, recant, retract, resile]

  2. [also: forsworn, forswore]

Usage examples of "forswear".

Along with a more subtle attack against those criminal souls who forswear bulbs entirely and use candles.

Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors.

There are those who forswear killing, and they may be what is best in mortals, but neither you nor I are of that kind.

I once extracted a smile of approbation from him by telling him that he would forswear Moses if the Pope would make him a cardinal.

Without the northern no-fly zone, and with the United States explicitly forswearing interference in Iraq's internal affairs, the Kurds would have no friends but the mountains, as their traditional saying bemoans.

Timoteo had sired a daughter and two sons of his first wife and a daughter by his second, and at least a dozen by-blows were scattered in the wake of his campaignings, but none of his male offspring seemed to have inherited their father's own unique blend of talents and strengths and there would likely never be more, for he had not quickened any woman since that hellish day that the forsworn Sforzas and their torturers had kept him in torment before Roberto and the condotta had burst in and rescued him.

Yet there is something about it they have needed, something they have chosen, and so in the end, unlike the asbestos worker who bitterly decries the management that has lied to him and led him down a fatal path, the fighter feels no core bitterness, not even at himself for being a fool, for making such a choice in the folly of youth, because he has forsworn the illusion of wisdom.

The Collegium Charter Compact stated that the isle of Freeland would maintain its neutrality in perpetuity, that the Collegium would be open to students from any province, that all warlords would forswear any attempts to annex the educational institution and its land, and that scholars on their way to Collegium would be guaranteed safe passage through hostile territories.

He'd long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men's destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he'd drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he'd ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.

Iss flipped the lid on a silver box crusted with emeralds that had once belonged to the Surlord Rannock Hews, whom Borhis Horgo had slain in the black mud of Hound's Mire forty years earlier while five Forsworn held him down with the heels of their boots.

Think not we long remained blind to the idiotical folly of our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasure of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren desert, valuable only in the eyes of superstition.

Other people traveled the road, mostly carters, drovers, and market traders, but occasionally a fine lady dressed in scarlet velvet and sables, accompanied by her men-at-arms, or a pair of Forsworn knights, wearing iron scale gleaming with bone oil, cloth-of-skin cloaks, and the thorned collars known as the Penance, would pass by or overtake them.

She heard the thoughts beneath his solemn words: there was no telling what trouble a Touched brat might bring on a soldier who had forsworn his loyalty oath to his king and his birth-vow of conduct as a member of the soldiers' caste.

From the day she had landed in Honolulu eighty-eight years before, she had forsworn forever the starving villages of China and had determined to become a permanent resident of Hawaii.

He who confesses and repents may be pardoned, but he who not only does not repent but also retracts his confession, forswears himself, and stubbornly denies that he has anything to repent, he must die.