Other forms: disabused
To disabuse is to rid somebody of a mistaken belief. Disabuse him of the notion, allow me to disabuse you, disabused of the idea.
It takes of, always — you disabuse somebody of something — and it usually appears with notion or idea. It carries a faint sting, because it implies the belief was foolish. Note that the abuse in it means misuse rather than cruelty.
1verbdisabuseTo rid somebody of a mistaken belief.
“I had to disabuse him of the idea that the job would be easy.”
disabuse is a correcting.
From dis- plus abuse, in the older sense of misuse or deception, from Latin abuti, to misuse.
Latin
abūsus — misused, using up
Old French
abus — improper use
Middle English
abusen
English
abuse
English, today
disabuse
Built from
From dis + abuse. Compare French désabuser. abuse comes from Middle English abusen, then from either Old French abus (“improper use”), or from Latin abūsus (“misused, using up”), perfect active participle of abūtor (“make improper use of, consume, abuse”), from ab (“away”) + ūtor (“to use”). Equivalent to ab + use.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA