WORD OF THE DAY: GAINSAY
verb | gayn-SAY
To gainsay something is to deny or disagree with it, or to show or say that it is not true. Gainsay is a formal word usually used in negative statements.
// Although the defendant initially denied involvement in the incident, there was no gainsaying the evidence that the prosecutor presented at the trial.
Example of gainsay
“Whatever you think of it, there’s no gainsaying the fact that ‘The Sound of Music’ is a remarkably durable vehicle. It’s frequently produced, and suffered no lasting damage to its reputation from a live NBC performance in 2013 …” — Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe, 9 Jan. 2026
Did You Know?
You might have trouble figuring out the meaning of gainsay if you’re thinking of our modern word gain plus say. It should help to know that the gain part comes to us from the Old English word gēan-, meaning “against” or “in opposition to.” (The familiar verb gain comes from Anglo-French and is unrelated.) In Middle English, gēan- was joined to seyen (“to say”) to form gein-seyen, which led to the modern word gainsay. So when you see gainsay, think “to say against”—that is, “to deny” or “to contradict.”
Merriam Webster Dictionary
