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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

recuse.

To reject or repudiate (an authority, a person, a court judgment, etc.).

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɹɪˈkjuːz/Received-Pronunciation/ɹiˈkjuz/General-American/ɹə-/General-American
  1. To reject or repudiate (an authority, a person, a court judgment, etc.).

    often · reflexive · transitive
  2. To reject or repudiate (an authority, a person, a court judgment, etc.). Of a judge, juror, or prosecutor: to declare (oneself) unable to participate in a court case due to an actual or potential conflict of interest or lack of impartiality.

    often · reflexive · transitive
    The judge recused herself from that case, citing a possible conflict of interest as one of the parties was a personal friend.
  3. To reject or repudiate (an authority, a person, a court judgment, etc.). To object to (a judge, juror, or prosecutor) participating in a court case due to an actual or potential conflict of interest or lack of impartiality.

    Canada · US · often · reflexive · transitive
  4. To refuse (to do something).

    obsolete · often · reflexive · transitive
  5. To dismiss (an appeal).

    obsolete · often · rare · reflexive · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Late Middle English recusen, from Old French recuser (modern French récuser (“to challenge; to impugn; (formal) to make an objection; (law) to recuse”), and from its etymon Latin recūsāre, the present active infinitive of recūsō (“to decline, refuse, reject; (law) to object to, protest”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’, denoting opposition or reversal) + causa (“cause, reason; (law) case, claim; etc.”) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). Doublet of rouse and possibly ruse. Cognates * Catalan recusar * French récuser * Italian ricusare * Old Occitan recuzar * Portuguese recusar * Spanish recusar

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.