confute

From Middle French confuter, from Latin confūtāre.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kənfjuːt/

confute (third-person singular simple present confutes, present participle confuting, simple past and past participle confuted)

1. (transitive, now rare) To show (something or someone) to be false or wrong; to disprove or refute.
   • 1593, Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence:

     Procatalepsis is a forme of speech by which the Orator perceiving aforehand what might be objected against him, and hurt him, doth confute it before it be spoken […] .

   • 1644, John Milton, Aeropagitica:

     bad books [...] to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.

• confutable
• inconfutable