Today’s Words That Work: Gainsay

To gainsay (GANE-say) — from the Middle English for “again” + “say” — is to deny, dispute, or contradict.

Example (as used by Virginia Heffernan in a New York Times article about collecting physical books in the Internet age): “[Cultural critic Walter] Benjamin is not to be gainsaid. If he says [acquiring but] not reading [all the books in your personal library] can be as sophisticated and European as reading them, I believe him.”