Other forms: spurned, spurns, spurning
To spurn is to reject something with contempt. Spurn the offer, a spurned lover, spurn their help.
The contempt is the difference from refuse, and the word implies the offer was beneath consideration. The Old English meant to kick, which is exactly the gesture the word still carries.
1verbspurnTo reject something with contempt.
“She spurned his offer of help and insisted on doing it herself.”
spurn is a rejecting.
Old English spurnan means to kick or strike against, from a Germanic root also behind spur.
Proto-Indo-European
*sperH-
Proto-Germanic
*spurnaną — to tread, kick, knock out
Old English
spurnan — to strike against, kick, spurn, reject; stumble
Middle English
spurnen
English, today
spurn
From Middle English spurnen, spornen, from Old English spurnan (“to strike against, kick, spurn, reject; stumble”), from Proto-Germanic spurnaną (“to tread, kick, knock out”), from Proto-Indo-European sperH-. Cognate with Scots spurn (“to strike, push, kick”), German anspornen (“to spur on”), Icelandic sporna, spyrna (“to kick”), Latin spernō (“despise, distain, scorn”). Related to spur and spread.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA