Other forms: refuted, refuting, refutes
To refute a claim is to prove it wrong. The paper refutes the earlier finding. It is a strong word: refuting is not disagreeing, it is showing with evidence that something cannot stand.
That strength is the whole issue with the word, because it is very widely used to mean simply deny — the minister refuted the allegations — and careful writers object, because denying and disproving are different acts. Both uses are now recorded in dictionaries; the strict one is safer in any writing that will be judged. Rebut sits usefully in between: to rebut is to argue against with reasons, without claiming to have settled it. And confute is the same as refute and nobody says it.
1verbrefuteTo prove that a claim or argument is wrong.
“The evidence refutes the whole theory.”
2verbdenyTo deny a claim firmly — a use careful writers object to.
“He refuted the allegations in a short statement.”
refute is a way of arguing against.
Latin refutare meant to drive back or repel — the same root family as refuse. It has always been about pushing an argument away, and the strict English sense keeps the idea that the pushing has to succeed.
Latin
refūtō — refute, repudiate
English, today
refute
From Latin refūtō (“refute, repudiate”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA