Definition of "redargue"

(transitive)

1. (obsolete except in Scots law)

   1. To disprove or refute (someone) in an argument.  quotations  examples

      Quotations

      • Dia[ph Silkworm]. Sir, Ile redargue you, / By diſputation. / Com[passe]. O let's heare this! / I long to heare a man diſpute in his ſhirt / Of valour, and his ſvvord dravvne in his hand.

        1632 (first performance), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “The Magnetick Lady: Or, Humors Reconcil’d. A Comedy […]”, in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. […] (Second Folio), London: […] Richard Meighen, published 1640, Act III, scene vi, page 39

   2. To rebut or refute (an argument, a proposition, etc.).  quotations  examples

      Quotations

      • Nathaniel Carpenter [i.e., Nathanael Carpenter] late Fellow of Exceter Colledge in Oxford, in the ſecond booke and ſeventh chapter of his learned Geographicall concluſions, thus fully redargues that forgerie.

        1635, George Hakewill, “Touching Grammar, Rhetorique, Logicke, the Mathematiques, Philosophy, Architecture, the Arts of Painting and Navigation”, in An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World. […], 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] William Turner […], book III, section 4 (Of the Art of Navigation, […]), page 310

      • [T]he objections you mention, I humbly conceive, are ſuch as may be redargued, if not entirely removed— […]

        1771, [Tobias Smollett], “To Mr. Henry Davis, Bookseller, in London”, in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker […], volume I, London: […] W. Johnston, […]; and B. Collins, […], pages v–vi

2. (obsolete)

   1. Often followed by for or of: to censure, to rebuke, to reprove (someone or something).  quotations  examples

      Quotations

      • Wherefore, says he, the libel maun be redargued by the pannel proving her defences.In a passage spoken in Scots.]

        , chapter XI, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, page 329

   2. (rare) To argue (a case, proposition, etc.) against someone.

(intransitive, obsolete) To present a disproof or refutation of an argument, a person, etc.