@Ben Liddicott - Re: The US mission refutes many of Bot’s comments
From right below that second entry:
"USAGE The use of refute to mean deny is thought by many people to be incorrect "
And here's a quote from my Collins English Dictionary published in 1986:
"Refute is often used incorrectly as a synonym of deny. In careful usage, however, to deny something is to state that it is untrue; to refute something is to assemble evidence in order to prove it untrue: all he could do was deny teh allegations since he was unable to refute them
Your cite is simply reflecting the fact that the word's meaning is changing *because* of its repeated incorrect usage.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
