Shakespeare, it may be suspected, is too poetic to be a perfect Englishman; but his works refute that suspicion.

It is difficult to judge with what intention such airy bursts of malevolence are vented; if such writers hope to deceive, let us rather repel them with scorn, than refute them by disputation.

This bold experiment, Sir John Hawkins has related in such a manner as to suggest a charge against Johnson of intentionally hastening his end; a charge so very inconsistent with his character in every respect, that it is injurious even to refute it, as Sir John has thought it necessary to do.

And if you can refute it for me, and sweep the whole away like a wild dream when one awakes, none will be more thankfulparadoxical as it may seemthan your unhappy Cousin.'

However difficult it may be for men who believe in preternatural communications, in modern times, to satisfy those who are of a different opinion, they may easily refute the doctrine of their opponents, who impute a belief in second sight to superstition.

He courted argument; he challenged the whole Church to refute him.

For, we know, maids do refute To grant what they do come to lose.

For to say that slaves are honourably obtained on the coast; to say that their treatment is of the mildest nature, and yet to propose the above-mentioned regulations as necessary, is to refute himself more clearly, than I confess myself to be able to do it: and I have only to request, that the regulations proposed by this writer, in the defence of slavery, may be considered as so many proofs of the assertions contained in my own work.

The instances that we have mentioned above, are sufficient to shew, that there was no inferiority, either in their nature, or their understandings: and at the same time that they refute the principles of the ancients, they afford a valuable lesson to those, who have been accustomed to form too precipitate a judgment on the abilities of men: for, alas!

This gave his scholar an insight into the subject; who, living besides in the land where both the Slave Trade and slavery were established, obtained an additional knowledge of them, so as to be able to refute many of those objections, to which others, for want of local observation, could never have replied.

It was soon perceived that it would be possible to refute the former out of their own mouths, and to do this seemed more eligible than to proceed in the other way.

He made many excellent and powerful speeches, which tasked the intellect of Webster to refute; but, whatever the subject, it was seen only through his Southern spectacles, and argued from partisan grounds and with partisan zeal.

V. countervail, oppose; mitigate against; rebut &c (refute) 479; subvert &c (destroy) 162; cheek, weaken; contravene; contradict &c (deny) 536; tell the other side of the story, tell another story, turn the scale, alter the case; turn the tables; cut both ways; prove a negative.

In order to give a public denial of certain reports circulated in Bath, he had called upon an editor, requesting him to insert the said reports in his paper in order that he might write him a letter to refute them.

The traditions that have come down to us of what happened before the building of the city, or before its building was contemplated, as being suitable rather to the fictions of poetry than to the genuine records of history, I have no intention either to affirm or to refute.

Generally it is true that the object of the Fathers is not critical but dogmatic, to refute Marcion's system out of his own Gospel.

I do not stop here to refute and disclaim again the unworthy notion, which was early put forward, but has been since silently retracted and disowned, that it might have been advisable to try the chance of what might be effected by a menace of war, unsupported by any serious design of carrying that menace into execution.

For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I here dare you to refute.

He does not refute, but denounces him.

They heard him refute all their arguments in their own language.

On the other hand, his long and laborious effort to refute Newton's theory of the composition of white light is now generally regarded as a misdirection of energy.

Gerry fought on almost singlehanded, but he could not refute the evidence that he had invited.

Governor Martin answered Sevier in a public letter, in which he went over his arguments one by one, and sought to refute them.

As became a woman who had to struggle singly with the world, too, her native shrewdness taught her, that the best moment to refute a calumny was to stop it as soon as it began to circulate, and her answer was as warm in manner as it was positive in terms.

" "Nay, my lord, I would refute the idea of safety in my Lady Constance.