What is the difference between Adjure, Abjure, and Conjure ?

Adjure, Abjure, Conjure

What is the difference between Adjure, Abjure, and Conjure ?



Being so similar in spelling and sound, these three words can confuse you. Not only that they are confusingly close in meaning.

What is the meaning of Adjure ?
Adjure is a verb; it means to ask or to order somebody to do something.
Adjure in sentence:

1. The teacher adjured his students to remain calm in the classroom.
2. Police adjure the robbers to tell the truth.

What is the meaning of Abjure ?
Abjure, a verb, means to promise publicly that you will give up or reject a belief.

• to reject something formally

Abjure in sentence:

1. He abjure the position of President.
2. I abjure all the allegiances.

What is the meaning of Conjure ?
As a verb, conjure means to do clever tricks such as making things seem to appear or disappear like a magic.

• to create or imagine something.
• appeal or request earnestly

Conjure in sentence:

1. He conjured soul of dead people.
2. He learned to conjure from his grandfather.

What is the difference between Adjure, Abjure, and conjure ?
Abjure origins from Latin abjurare meaning "to deny on oath". It is rendered from prefix "ab" meaning away + "jurare" meaing to swear. As ab means away and jurare means to swear, abjure becomes to mean away from what you used to believe earlier.

Adjure comes form the Latin adjurare meaning "to swear to", form prefix "ad-" to , towards + "jurare", to swear. As prefix ad suggests the meaning "to take towards something, adjure means to take or ask someone to do what they said.

Conjure is taken from Old French word conjurer that means to plot or exorcize. Con means together + jurare. As con means together and jurare means to swear or to oath, the word carries the implication of conspiracy. In the course of time, as conspiracy has some feeling magic, the word conjure evolve to mean magic or trick. 

In a nutshell
The Latin word "jurare" is common in all of them. However, they have different prefixes ab, ad, and con that give meaning to the words.
Ab means away, so abjure means get away from past belief.
Ad means towards, so adjure means to ask someone to do something.
Con means together, so conjure means a magic trick done by together.

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