abjure

If there was an abiding theme across X’s work and life, it was the attempt to subvert a fixed self, choosing to cycle through artistic personas and abjure her personal history.

From New York Times ● Mar. 18, 2023

By 1907, when Sargent was 51, he’d had enough: “No more paughtraits,” he wrote in a now-famous note, “I abhor and abjure them and hope never to do another especially of the Upper Classe.”

From Washington Post ● Mar. 5, 2020

Johnson managed to abjure his past and, on the march toward an exceptionally successful career, leave it behind.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 12, 2018

Press notes indicate some serial business ahead, putting extra pressure on Astral's decision whether to remain mortal and forever abjure the company of fairies, or to get back to where she once belonged.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2016

The successors of Theodosius modified these edicts, some of which menaced heretics with the prosecutions of the impartial judges, if they did not voluntarily abjure their errors.

From The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII. by Llorente, Juan Antonio

India abjures formal alliances, which it sees as constraints on its independence.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

Because the play abjures psychology in favor of gesture, much as Swan apparently did in his choreopoems, nothing tells us whether he is in on the joke.

From New York Times ● May 2, 2019

Or, make that drama avoidance; this is a novel that abjures not just plot twists but plot advances.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2014

He abjures his cow pies for sunblush tomato and goat's cheese baguettes and begins to use a Remington Philishave.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 18, 2012

The next morning, at breakfast, the parlour-maid again announced Browsem—for my uncle abjures men-servants in the house—and the keeper, looking puzzled and long-faced, appeared at the door.

From Christmas Penny Readings Original Sketches for the Season by Fenn, George Manville

With great subversiveness, Portis consistently abjured America’s postwar fetishes for progress, social mobility and affluence.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 13, 2023

Tunisia's army has historically abjured a political role and Saied has not yet tested the security forces by trying to mobilise them for a major crackdown on dissent.

From Reuters ● Dec. 18, 2022

He abjured the hunt for home runs, but his on-base percentage was high.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 8, 2021

His three Republican successors did not follow suit, Calvin Coolidge especially abjured such monarchical power.

From Fox News ● Jan. 10, 2019

In a sober ceremony, the Mexica abjured their old religion and embraced Christianity.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

As for abjuring Eurocentricity, the author himself refers to the “four allies plus China” that received permanent Security Council seats in 1945.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 9, 2026

Those that succeeded did so by offering apt substitutions for in-person performance or by abjuring it completely in favor of a frankly virtual experience.

From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2022

Later Nate cites an additional, darker reason for abjuring female companionship: “You care a damn about a woman then you keep her as far away from this life as possible.”

From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2017

I have no logical or moral explanation for my abjuring of e-readers.

From Slate ● Jun. 17, 2015

To make this social league invincible within, each member in the fellowship must show a true humility, abjuring all temptation or desire to be a despot or a grandee.

From Abraham Lincoln's Cardinal Traits; A Study in Ethics, with an Epilogue Addressed to Theologians by Beardslee, Clark S.