Word.ws English Dictionary

denay

denay noun: denial; refusal.

Noun

denay (plural denays)

  1. (obsolete) denial; refusal
    • Forget not yet the gret aſſays
      the cruell wrong the ſkornfull ways
      the paynfull pacyence in denays […]a. 1542, Thomas Wyatt, “Forget not yet the tryde entent” in the Devonshire Manuscript, folio 54 verso
    • Duke Orsino: My love can give no place, bide no denay.c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

Verb

denay (third-person singular simple present denays, present participle denaying, simple past and past participle denayed)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To deny, refuse.
    • That with great rage he stoutly doth denay.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 15
    • Preserve this babe, whose mother must denay / To nourish it, preserve this harmless child.1600, Edward Fairfax, The Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, XII, xxvii

Forms of denay

Noun
pluraldenays
Verb
third-person singular presentdenays
present participledenaying
past participledenayed
pastdenayed

Questions about denay

What does denay mean?
Denay means denial; refusal.
What part of speech is denay?
Denay can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of denay?
The plural of denay is denays.

Words near denay in the dictionary

  1. denaturized
  2. denaturizes
  3. denaturizing
  4. Denault
  5. denaverine
  6. denay
  7. denayed
  8. denaying
  9. denays
  10. denazification
  11. denazifications

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: denay (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “denay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/denay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.