Home US English prescind

Definition of prescind in English:

prescind

intransitive verb

[no object]

  • 1prescind from formal Leave out of consideration.

    ‘we have prescinded from many vexing issues’
    • ‘In identifying defeaters that our evidence must eliminate if we are to claim knowledge, the more we prescind from practical considerations, the wider we cast our net.’
    • ‘There are tremendously significant issues, and this doesn't prescind from making a judgment on people's personalities.’
    • ‘Here is an opportunity to prescind from emotion and think critically about a very important subject.’
    • ‘To prescind from these features, however, is to forfeit the autonomy of concrete individuals that must, as I argued, be the starting point for determining how we should act in these cases.’
    • ‘After all, Christians cannot prescind from capitalism.’
    1. 1.1with object Cut off or separate from something.
      ‘his is an idea entirely prescinded from all of the others’
      • ‘We can react to it and then prescind it from what we experience.’

Pronunciation

prescind

/prēˈsind/ /priˈsɪnd/

Origin

Mid 17th century (in the sense ‘cut off abruptly or prematurely’): from Latin praescindere, from prae ‘before’ + scindere ‘to cut’.