give the lie to
English
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Verb
editgive the lie to (third-person singular simple present gives the lie to, present participle giving the lie to, simple past gave the lie to, past participle given the lie to)
- (idiomatic, transitive) To reveal or prove (something) to be false; to refute.
- They found plenty of emails that gave the lie to his assertion that he didn't know about the incident.
- 1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 9, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 262:
- The automatic under his pillow gave the lie to that statement.
- 2011 July 18, John Cassidy, “Mastering the Machine”, in The New Yorker[1], →ISSN:
- The bet against Treasuries gave the lie to a criticism sometimes made of Dalio—that he is basically a bond-market investor, who has benefitted from a twenty-year rally in bonds.
Synonyms
editTranslations
editto prove (something) to be false
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