disabuse

English

Etymology

From Middle French désabuser, or dis- +‎ abuse.

Pronunciation

• (UK, General American) IPA^(key): /dɪsəˈbjuːz/

Verb

disabuse (third-person singular simple present disabuses, present participle disabusing, simple past and past participle disabused)

1. (transitive) To free (someone) of a misconception or misapprehension; to unveil a falsehood held by (someone).
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 201:

     I had been too profoundly disabused of life's dearest illusions ever again to allow of their sweet engrossment.

   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 140:

     If we had any hopes or illusions about the National Party before they came into office, we were disabused of them quickly.

   • 2024 July 11, Theodore Schleifer, Jacob Bernstein, Reid J. Epstein, “How Biden Lost George Clooney and Hollywood”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Mr. Katzenberg is now taking his commensurate lumps, particularly because contributors feel he helped disabuse donors’ concerns about Mr. Biden’s physical state.

Synonyms

• undeceive

Derived terms

• disabusal

Translations

free of a misconception

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 消除 (zh) (xiāochú), 糾正／纠正 (zh) (jiūzhèng), 打消 (zh) (dǎxiāo)

• Dutch: ontdoen (nl), terugbrengen van een dwaling, uit de droom helpen
• Finnish: oikaista harhaluulo, oikaista väärinkäsitys
• French: détromper (fr)
• German: aufklären (de), eines Besseren belehren
• Hungarian: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: wyprowadzać z błędu impf, wyprowadzić z błędu pf
• Portuguese: desenganar (pt)
• Romanian: dezabuzează
• Russian: please add this translation if you can
• Spanish: desengañar (es)

Anagrams

• subideas