Other forms: rejected, rejects, rejecting
To reject something is to say no to what is offered. The bank rejects the application, the ticket machine rejects a bent coin, she rejected the offer and stayed where she was.
It lands harder than refuse, because rejecting a person hurts: rejected by friends, a rejection letter, the fear of rejection. Medicine borrows it exactly, since a body can reject a transplanted kidney and treat the new organ as an intruder. In a factory a reject is an item that failed inspection, and rejects end up cheap in a bin by the door. The stress moves between the two words, so you reJECT a thing and the thing is a REject. Reject takes an object, as in reject an offer, an idea, a person, while refuse takes the action: you refuse to go.
1verbrejectTo refuse to accept or agree to something.
“The committee rejected the plan without a vote.”
2verbgiveTo refuse to give someone love, friendship or a place among you.
“He felt rejected by everyone he had grown up with.”
3verbbody(of a body) to fail to accept a transplanted organ.
“There is a risk the body will reject the new kidney.”
4nounthrownSomething thrown out because it is not good enough.
“The rejects were stacked in a crate by the loading door.”
Also accepted in games: turn down
From Latin reiectus, from reicere, to throw back, built from re-, back, and iacere, to throw. A rejection is the offer thrown back at whoever held it out. The Latin word pushed the old English verb aweorpan out of use, which had meant much the same thing.
Proto-Indo-European
*(H)yeh₁-
Latin
reiectus
Middle English
rejecten
English, today
reject
Built from
From Late Middle English rejecten, from Latin reiectus, past participle of reicio (“to throw back”), from re- (“back”) + iacio (“to throw”). Displaced native āweorpan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA