Word.ws English Dictionary

withsake

withsake verb: to forsake; abandon; renounce; deny; refuse.

Verb

withsake (third-person singular simple present withsakes, present participle withsaking, simple past withsook, past participle withsaken)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To forsake; abandon; renounce; deny; refuse.
    • Well! the king then openly declared to the priest and to them all, that he would firmly "withsake" and renounce idolatry, and receive the faith of Christ.1852, Alfred (King of England), The whole works of King Alfred the Great
    • [...] as Christ did not withsake, a love not proceeding from God and referring all to him, which the Apostle here forbids.1852, August Neander, The First epistle of John: practically explained

Forms of withsake

third-person singular presentwithsakes
present participlewithsaking
pastwithsook
past participlewithsaken

Origin of withsake

From Middle English withsaken, from Old English wiþsacan (“to forsake, abandon, renounce, refuse, deny, oppose, drive against”); equivalent to with- + sake. Compare Middle High German widersachen.

Questions about withsake

What does withsake mean?
Withsake means to forsake; abandon; renounce; deny; refuse.
What part of speech is withsake?
Withsake is a verb.
What is the past tense of withsake?
The past tense of withsake is withsook.

Words near withsake in the dictionary

  1. withoutwards
  2. Withrow
  3. Withrows
  4. withs
  5. withsaid
  6. withsake
  7. withsaken
  8. withsakes
  9. withsaking
  10. withsat
  11. withsave

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: withsake (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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