im·pugn

(ĭm-pyo͞on′)

tr.v. im·pugned, im·pugn·ing, im·pugns

To attack as false or questionable; challenge in argument: impugn a political opponent's record.

[Middle English impugnen, from Old French impugner, from Latin impugnāre : in-, against; see in-² + pugnāre, to fight; see peuk- in Indo-European roots.]

im·pugn′a·ble adj.

im·pugn′er n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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References in periodicals archive

I do not wish to appear here in any fault-finding spirit, or as an impugner of the motives of those who believe that the time has come for this Society to disband.

Speech to the American Anti-Slavery Society

The latest weapon used to create an army of innumerable impugners.

Implicit Bias

The period's rationalizing New Testament commentaries and the 1828 Life of Jesus of Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus, David Friedrich Strauss's Das Leben Jesu Kritisch Bearbeitet (1835-1836), Renan's Vie de Jesus (1863) (4): these are works which "slight" the "word" ("Leben Jesu and Vie de Jesus," CXLV); grievous "impugners of the Gospel" ("The Transfiguration : The Old 'Paulus' Theory," CXXXV); all of their authors apostates like the Emperor Julian ("Julian's Attempt to Build on the Site of the Temple," CXXIV); inevitably emanating from dubious Germany ("the land of doubt": "A Waking Thought (Continued)," CXXXIV), or from traducing France, where "the Parisian Christ," "this unscriptural pigmy!" ("Vie de Jesus: On Hearing of a Forthcoming Cheap Edition," CCXXXI) is promoted.

Charles (Tennyson) Turner and the power of the small poetic thing

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