confute

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to prove a claim, argument, or person wrong by evidence or reasoning; to refute conclusively

   The later experiment confuted the theory's central prediction.

Borrowed in the sixteenth century from Latin confutare ("to check, repress, or silence; refute"), probably through Middle French confuter. In English its surviving sense narrowed to defeating an argument or proving a claim false.

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