oppugn

present singular third person oppugns · participle present oppugning · participle past oppugned · past oppugned

1. raretransitiveTo contradict or controvert; to oppose; to challenge or question the truth or validity of a given statement.

   If nothing can oppugne love, And virtue invious ways can prove, What may not he confide to do That brings both love and virtue too?

   1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC

   1 more example

   It is for the same reason, that is, because 'tis all comprehended in Slawkenbergius, that I say nothing likewise of Scroderus (Andrea) who all the world knows, set himself to oppugn Prignitz with great violence, ---- proving it in his own way, first logically, and then by a series of stubborn facts

   1761, Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, volume III, London: R. and J. Dodsley, page 180