Other forms: impugned, impugning, impugns
To impugn is to cast doubt on somebody's honesty or motives. Impugn his integrity, impugn the evidence, without impugning anybody.
It is formal and legal, and it nearly always takes an abstract object such as integrity or motives. The Latin means to fight against, from the word for a fist, and pugilism is a relative.
1verbimpugnTo cast doubt on somebody's honesty or motives.
“How dare you impugn my honesty after all these years?”
impugn is a doubting.
The Latin is a fist, the same fist behind pugilism, another name for boxing. To impugn somebody's honesty is to come at it with your fists up.
hooks ontofist
Latin impugnare means to attack, from in plus pugnare, to fight, from pugnus, a fist.
Proto-Indo-European
*pewǵ-
Latin
impugnō
Middle French
impugner
English, today
impugn
Built from
Borrowed from Middle French impugner, from Latin impugnō, from in- + pugnō (“fight”), from pugnus (“fist”), as in English pugilism (“fighting with fists, boxing”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA