refusal

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: re=fus=al

CIDE DICTIONARY

refusal, n. 

•  The act of refusing; denial of anything demanded, solicited, or offered for acceptance.  [1913 Webster]

  "Do they not seek occasion of new quarrels,
  On my refusal, to distress me more?"  [1913 Webster]
•  The right of taking in preference to others; the choice of taking or refusing; option; as, to give one the refusal of a farm; to have the refusal of an employment.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

refusal, n.
1 the act or an instance of refusing; the state of being refused.
2 (in full first refusal) the right or privilege of deciding to take or leave a thing before it is offered to others.

DEVIL DICTIONARY

refusal

n. Denial of something desired; as an elderly maiden's hand in marriage, to a rich and handsome suitor; a valuable franchise to a rich corporation, by an alderman; absolution to an impenitent king, by a priest, and so forth. Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.

THESAURUS

refusal

Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition Party, Volstead Act, abjuration, abjurement, antipathy, averseness, aversion, backwardness, ban, brush-off, bucking, challenge, choice, chucking, chucking out, cold shoulder, contempt, contention, contraband, contradiction, contraposition, contravention, contraversion, counteraction, counterworking, crosscurrent, crossing, cursoriness, cut, declination, declining, denial, despisal, despising, disagreement, disallowance, disapproval, discard, disclamation, discounting, disinclination, dismissal, disobedience, disownment, disposal, disregard, disrelish, dissent, distaste, embargo, emption, exception, exclusion, first option, first refusal, foot-dragging, forbiddance, forbidden fruit, forbidding, fractiousness, grudging consent, grudgingness, head wind, ignoring, impugnation, impugnment, index, index expurgatorius, index librorum prohibitorum, indisposedness, indisposition, indocility, inhibition, injunction, interdict, interdiction, interdictum, intractableness, lack of enthusiasm, lack of zeal, law, mutinousness, negation, no-no, nolition, nonacceptance, nonapproval, nonconsideration, obstinacy, opposing, opposition, opposure, oppugnation, option, passing by, perfunctoriness, preclusion, preemption, prevention, privilege, prohibition, prohibitory injunction, proscription, putting away, putting out, rebuff, rebutment, rebuttal, recalcitrance, recalcitrancy, recantation, refractoriness, rejection, reluctance, renitence, renitency, renouncement, repression, repudiation, repugnance, repulse, resistance, restrictive covenants, right of emption, right of preemption, ruling out, scouting, slowness, snub, spurning, standing against, statute, stubbornness, sulk, sulkiness, sulks, sullenness, sumptuary laws, suppression, taboo, throwing out, traversal, turning out, undercurrent, unenthusiasm, unwillingness, zoning, zoning laws

ROGET THESAURUS

refusal

Unwillingness

N unwillingness, indisposition, indisposedness, disinclination, aversation, nolleity, nolition, renitence, renitency, reluctance, indifference, backwardness, slowness, want of alacrity, want of readiness, indocility, scrupulousness, scrupulosity, qualms of conscience, twinge of conscience, delicacy, demur, scruple, qualm, shrinking, recoil, hesitation, fastidiousness, averseness, dissent, refusal, unwilling, not in the vein, loth, loath, shy of, disinclined, indisposed, averse, reluctant, not content, adverse, laggard, backward, remiss, slack, slow to, indifferent, scrupulous, squeamish, repugnant, restiff, restive, demurring, unconsenting, involuntary, unwillingly, grudgingly, with a heavy heart, with a bad, with an ill grace, against one's wishes, against one's will, against the grain, sore against one's wishes, sore against one's will, sore against one's grain, invita Minerva, a contre caeur, malgre soi, in spite of one's teeth, in spite of oneself, nolens volens, perforce, under protest, no, not for the world, far be it from me.

Rejection

N rejection, repudiation, exclusion, refusal, declination, rejected, reject, rejectaneous, rejectious, not chosen, to be thought of, out of the question, neither, neither the one nor the other, no, non haec in faedera.

Refusal

N refusal, rejection, noncompliance, incompliance, denial, declining, declension, declinature, peremptory refusal, flat refusal, point blank refusal, repulse, rebuff, discountenance, recusancy, abnegation, protest, disclaimer, dissent, revocation, refusing, restive, restiff, recusant, uncomplying, unconsenting, not willing to hear of, deaf to, refused, ungranted, out of the question, not to be thought of, impossible, no, on no account, not for the world, no thank you, thanks but no thanks, non possumus, your humble servant, bien oblige, not on your life, no way, not even if you beg on your knees.

Purchase

N purchase, emption, buying, purchasing, shopping, preemption, refusal, coemption, bribery, slave trade, buyer, purchaser, emptor, vendee, patron, employer, client, customer, clientele, purchased, caveat emptor, the customer is always right.

Dissent

N dissent, discordance, difference diversity of opinion, nonconformity, protestantism, recusancy, schism, disaffection, secession, recantation, dissension, discontent, cavilling, protest, contradiction, noncompliance, dissentient, dissenter, non-juror, non-content, nonconformist, sectary, separatist, recusant, schismatic, protestant, heretic, refusal, dissenting, negative, dissident, dissentient, unconsenting, non-content, nonjuring, protestant, recusant, unconvinced, unconverted, unavowed, unacknowledged, out of the question, discontented, unwilling, extorted, sectarian, denominational, schismatic, heterodox, intolerant, no, at variance, at issue with, under protest, Int, God forbid!, not for the world, I'll be hanged if, never tell me, your humble servant, pardon me, many men many minds, quot homines tot sententiae, tant s'en faut, il s'en faut bien, no way, by no means, count me out.

Negation

N negation, abnegation, denial, disavowal, disclaimer, abjuration, contradiction, contravention, recusation, protest, recusancy, flat contradiction, emphatic contradiction, emphatic denial, dementi, qualification, repudiation, retraction, confutation, refusal, prohibition, denying, denied, contradictory, negative, negatory, recusant, at issue upon, no, nay, not, nowise, not a bit, not a whit, not a jot, not at all, nohow, not in the least, not so, negative, negatory, no way, no such thing, nothing of the kind, nothing of the sort, quite the contrary, tout au contraire, far from it, tant s'en faut, on no account, in no respect, by no, by no manner of means, negatively, never, never in a million years, at no time, there never was a greater mistake, I know better, non haec in faedera, a thousand times no.