Impugn

verb

To challenge or dismiss the veracity, morality, or viability of something or someone

Usage

In our world of rules and regulations, the only way to ensure that rules fulfill their intended purpose and keep the relative peace is to call attention to when they are broken. To impugn someone for having run afoul of a rule not only highlights that person's wrongdoing, but by choosing to enforce the rule in the first place, demonstrates our enduring endorsement of the value that it safeguards. In a way, then, rules are meant to be upheld as well as followed.

To impugn someone, or something, is to challenge or accuse them of having misrepresented facts, transgressed authority, or in some way run afoul of good conduct. For instance, to impugn a statistical claim would suggest that it is incorrect or improperly measured or presented, while impugning people implies that their senses of ethics, truthfulness, or trustworthiness are suspect. What these examples share is that what is being questioned, whether it is a piece of information or a person’s behavior, is somehow perceived to be disingenuous.

As when one accuses, impugning a person or thing does not definitively prove guilt or misdeed, but merely underscores the possibility that it has occurred. It could turn out that the impugned statistic was actually corroborated by other data points. Similarly, an impugned individual could ultimately present evidence that dissipates the initial suspicion surrounding his or her actions. But impugn shares another key element of accusing: that even alleging untoward conduct mars the esteem or opinion of the suspect person or thing. A suspicious fact that turns out to be true will still probably not be readily believed, nor will someone who is accused of using far-fetched excuses, however truthful.

Finally, impugn takes on somewhat more particular meaning when utilized in its common manifestation, as part of the phrase to impugn one’s honor. If you impugn a person’s honor, it means you are claiming that that person is not as respectable as the community at large regards them, implying that they have done something to debase themselves in the eyes of the public. In turn, an individual whose esteem is cast into doubt in this way could say something like "You impugn my honor," which would connote that this social demotion is done unfairly, and that, paradoxically, you are the one in the wrong! When impugning honor or when facts are impugned, there is much reason for doubt.

Example: Many famous scientists publicly and vociferously impugn widely accepted fallacies circulating in the public discourse.

Example: Though the trial had yet to establish her guilt or innocence, the mere accusation of wrongdoing was enough to impugn her.

Origin

Though now primarily understood in a figurative sense, impugn has historically been tied to the notion of attacking. Emerging in English in the late 1300s, impugn came from the Middle French word impugner, meaning “to assault.” This latter term traces its roots through the Latin word impugnare, which meant “to assail” or “to fight” and which is composed of the prefix in-, meaning “into, at, on” and the stem pugnare, meaning “to fight.” Pugnare is also an ancestor of the English word pugnacious (“easy to pick a fight”). Pugnare derives from the Latin pugnus, or “fist,” which in turn comes from the Proto-Indo-European word pung. This Proto-Indo-European word is an adaptation of peuk and peug, both of which mean “to poke, jab, or stab.”

Derivative Words

Impugns: This form of impugn indicates when a singular, third person subject is the one offering a condemnatory remark.

Example: As a celebrated debater, she impugns any argument not supported by empirical evidence or logical proof.

Impugned: The past tense of impugn notes when an act of strong criticism has taken place in the past, or acts as an adjective to describe a person or thing as having sustained such a critique.

Example: The professor impugned the student’s term paper after finding several nearly identical portions of it on the Internet.

Example: The impugned essay was submitted for review by the university’s disciplinary board.

Impugning: The word’s present progressive notes when the process of factual or ethical challenge is presently ongoing, or serves as a noun to characterize the rebuke itself.

Example: Impugning her employees’ reported figures was not something she enjoyed, but her integrity as a supervisor depended on it.

Example: Kevin had endured a thorough impugning from his father for having claimed his room was clean when, in fact, he had merely shoved his dirty clothes under his bed.

Impugnable: This word refers to something which is open to challenge, such as a contention whose veracity has not been unshakably established.

Example: Some people contend that a common feature of American political discourse is that the policies that are a bedrock to one person are impugnable by another.

Impugner: An impugner is one who hands down a criticism of someone or something.

Example: Ever the impugner, Martha refused to accept her grandfather’s fanciful story at face value.

In Literature

From Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others:

That we are not totally transformed, that we can turn away, turn the page, switch the channel, does not impugn the ethical value of an assault by images. It is not a defect that we are not seared, that we do not suffer enough, when we see these images. Neither is the photograph supposed to repair our ignorance about the history and causes of the suffering it picks out and frames. Such images cannot be more than an invitation to pay attention, to reflect, to learn, to examine the rationalizations for mass suffering offered by established powers.

In a world where we are confronted almost daily with the suffering of our fellow human beings, sometimes from halfway around the world, Sontag reassures us that our occasional impulse to avoid witnessing signs of human pain does not call into question, or impugn, their significance. Rather, each time we witness suffering or an account of it can be taken as an opportunity for us to reflect on our actions and those of the people and institutions around us.

Mnemonic

Impugn implicates something in a falsehood.