DISOWNING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does disowning mean? 

• DISOWNING (noun)
  The noun DISOWNING has 1 sense:

1. refusal to acknowledge as one's own

  Familiarity information: DISOWNING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISOWNING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Refusal to acknowledge as one's own

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

disowning; disownment

Hypernyms ("disowning" is a kind of...):

renunciation; repudiation (rejecting or disowning or disclaiming as invalid)

Derivation:

disown (prevent deliberately (as by making a will) from inheriting)

 Context examples 

I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he wept like a simpleton.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“When I left her in America,” she continued, “it was only because her health was weak, and the change might have done her harm. She was given to the care of a faithful Scotch woman who had once been our servant. Never for an instant did I dream of disowning her as my child. But when chance threw you in my way, Jack, and I learned to love you, I feared to tell you about my child. God forgive me, I feared that I should lose you, and I had not the courage to tell you. I had to choose between you, and in my weakness I turned away from my own little girl. For three years I have kept her existence a secret from you, but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was well with her. At last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I knew the danger, I determined to have the child over, if it were but for a few weeks. I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a neighbour, without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. I pushed my precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the house during the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands so that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip about there being a black child in the neighbourhood. If I had been less cautious I might have been more wise, but I was half crazy with fear that you should learn the truth.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)