as in retracting
to solemnly or formally reject or go back on (as something formerly adhered to)
the Inquisition forced Galileo to recant his support of the Copernican observation that the earth revolves around the sun
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Recent Examples of recanting
In 1999, four suspects were arrested, with two suspects confessing but later recanting, police said.
—
Emily Shapiro, ABC News, 29 Sep. 2025
Lunsford ended up recanting his statement when questioned again, this time by a district attorney’s investigator.
—Tony Saavedra, Oc Register, 17 Sep. 2025
However, in a 2024 court filing known as a coram nobis petition, Zachary Adams revealed Autry was recanting his testimony and asked for a new trial.
—Julia Bonavita, FOXNews.com, 24 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for recanting
Verb
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School public safety had initially reported that a suspect had been taken into custody before retracting that statement.—
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This series of exemptions is part of EPA’s suite of PFAS de-regulation that includes approving PFAS-laden pesticides and retracting some of its maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) that were the result of years of careful research and policymaking.—
Verb
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Margaret’s father succeeded him as King George VI, and her mother Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, never forgave the duke for renouncing his duty to his country.—
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Ukraine withdrawing from all of the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and Kyiv officially renouncing its aim to join NATO.—
Verb
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But again, no school can prevent a player from withdrawing and enrolling elsewhere.—
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With his previous attorney withdrawing from the case, arraignment was postponed Wednesday for Rob Reiner’s youngest son, who is charged with murdering the famed filmmaker and his photographer wife Michele in their Brentwood home.—
Verb
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell released a video statement on Sunday night denying criminal wrongdoing shortly after the Department of Justice opened an investigation into him.—
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The vaccine misinformation advanced by the president and his science-denying Secretary of Health and Human Services is taking its toll on vaccination rates.—
Verb
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Federal and state officials have offered contradicting accounts of those videos.—
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The group says that carveout opened a political pathway to faster access to federal records, contradicting FOIA’s requirement that agencies handle requests in a content-neutral manner.—
Cite this Entry
“Recanting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/recanting. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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