unsay

English

Etymology

From Middle English unseyen, unseien, from Old English onseċġan (“to deny, renounce”), from Proto-West Germanic *andasaggjan (“to unsay, renounce, deny”), equivalent to un- ‎ say. Cognate with Dutch ontzeggen (“to deny”), German entsagen (“to renounce, abjure”).

Verb

unsay (third-person singular simple present unsays, present participle unsaying, simple past and past participle unsaid)

1. To withdraw, retract (something said).
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad […]

2. To cause something not to have been said; to make it so that one never said something (since this is physically impossible, usually in the subjunctive).

   I wish I could unsay that.

   There are some things I'd like to unsay... to my boss... right before he decided to fire me.

   • 1641 June or July, John Milton, Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and Whether It may be Deduc’d from the Apostolical Times by Virtue of Those Testimonies which are Alledg’d to that Purpose in Some Late Treatises; […]; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], volume I, Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC, page 247:

     Certainly if Chriſts Apoſtle have ſet down but two, then according to his own words, though he himſelf ſhuld unſay it, and not only the Angel of Smyrna, but an Angel from Heaven ſhould bear us down that there be three, Saint Paul has doom'd him twiſe, Let him be accurſt [...]

   • 1918, Algernon Blackwood, Karma, →ISBN, page 58:

     Unsay those haunting words.

Synonyms

• (retract something said): retract, take back, unspeak; See also Thesaurus:recant

Translations

to withdraw something said

• Serbo-Croatian: poništiti izrečeno, poreći (sh), povući izrečeno

cause not to have been said

• Esperanto: maldiri (eo)

Anagrams

• anyus, yuans