refuse to do something• We have promised to tell each other if the doctors refuse to.• A vocalminorityrefused toagree.• Steen refused toanswer any questions.• Duffy refuses to fall into the trap of spoon-feeding the material to passive students, which only increases their passivity.• I know from experience that fear can be handled if you refuse tolet it take over.• Even as the day began, rumours were rife that the band had refused to play.• Boseman was kicked out of practice on Tuesday for refusing to take a charge against hugeforward Maurice Strong.• But no party is willing to refuse to take advantage of these loopholes when the other party is doing it.• The hospital is refusing to take non-emergency patients.
refuse somebody something• Immigration authorities refused him a visa.
household/domestic refuse• This was made up of the organic residues of farms, forestry, industry and domestic refuse.• Unlikehabitationsites, they have little domestic refuse and, unlike cemetery sites, they do not normally containburials.• This aims to reduce the mountingflood 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.• As with domestic refuse, the problems of methanegasgeneration also exist when disposing of industrial waste underground.
Originrefuse1
(1300-1400)Old Frenchrefuser, from Latinrefundere“to pour back”
refuse2
(1300-1400)Old Frenchrefus, from refuser; → REFUSE1