Widerlegt

Widerlegt is the past participle of the German verb widerlegen, meaning to refute, disprove, or debunk. It can function as a verbal form in compound tenses or as an adjective describing a claim, hypothesis, argument, or theory that has been shown to be false or incorrect. In usage, it is often employed to report that evidence or argument has undermined a proposition.

Etymology and meaning: the word is formed from wider- (“against”) and legen (“to lay”), conveying the idea of laying against a proposition. The nuance is that something has been demonstrated as false by evidence or reasoning, not merely contradicted.

Grammar and usage: Present tense forms include ich widerlege, du widerlegst, er widerlegt, wir widerlegen, ihr widerlegt, sie widerlegen. Präteritum forms are ich widerlegte, du widerlegtst, er widerlegte, etc. The past participle is widerlegt and is used with the auxiliary haben to form perfect tenses (ich habe widerlegt, du hast widerlegt, er hat widerlegt). As a predicate or adjectival form, it appears in sentences like Die Hypothese ist widerlegt. The related noun is Widerlegung (refutation).

Context and nuance: widerlegen is common in scientific, academic, journalistic, and argumentative contexts, signaling that a claim has been disproven through evidence, testing, or argumentation. It should be distinguished from leugnen (to deny) and entkräften (to weaken), though all relate to challenge to a proposition.

See also: Widerlegung, Beweis, Begründung.