denials

Denials are acts or instances of refusing to acknowledge or accept a claim, fact, or proposition. The term comes from the Latin denegare, meaning to withhold. In ordinary language, denials can address personal beliefs, public statements, or disputed events.

In psychology, denial is a defense mechanism in which a person refuses to accept reality or painful facts. It can be conscious or unconscious and may function to reduce anxiety, though it can delay coping and adjustment when used persistently.

In logic and linguistics, denial refers to negation or the denial operator. A statement such as "not p" asserts the falsity of the proposition p. Denial interacts with other logical operations and with the structure of argumentation and discourse.

In law and administration, a denial is a formal rejection of a claim, accusation, or request. A defendant may denial charges, and agencies may deny applications, licenses, or appeals, often accompanied by findings, reasons, or procedures for appeal.

Denialism denotes a broader attitude of rejecting well-supported evidence. Climate denialism or vaccine denialism are examples where individuals or groups dispute established science despite consensus, sometimes fueled by political, ideological, or financial factors.

Denial can also describe service disruption, as in denials of service or denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, which aim to make a network, website, or service unavailable to users by overwhelming it with traffic.