REFUSAL. The act of declining to receive or to do something. 2. A grantee may refuse a title, vide Assent; one appointed executor may refuse to act as such. la some cases, a neglect to perform a duty which the party is required by law or his agreement to do, will amount to a refusal.

Source: Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
 

REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; as an elderly maiden's hand in marriage, to a rich and handsome suitor; a valuable franchise to a rich corporation, by an alderman; absolution to an impenitent king, by a priest, and so forth. Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.

Source: THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993)
 

Refusal \Re*fus"al\ (-al), n.

1. The act of refusing; denial of anything demanded, solicited, or offered for acceptance. [1913 Webster]

Do they not seek occasion of new quarrels, On my refusal, to distress me more? --Milton. [1913 Webster]

2. The right of taking in preference to others; the choice of taking or refusing; option; as, to give one the refusal of a farm; to have the refusal of an employment. [1913 Webster]

Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
 

149 Moby Thesaurus words for "refusal": Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition Party, Volstead Act, abjuration, abjurement, antipathy, averseness, aversion, backwardness, ban, brush-off, bucking, challenge, choice, chucking, chucking out, cold shoulder, contempt, contention, contraband, contradiction, contraposition, contravention, contraversion, counteraction, counterworking, crosscurrent, crossing, cursoriness, cut, declination, declining, denial, despisal, despising, disagreement, disallowance, disapproval, discard, disclamation, discounting, disinclination, dismissal, disobedience, disownment, disposal, disregard, disrelish, dissent, distaste, embargo, emption, exception, exclusion, first option, first refusal, foot-dragging, forbiddance, forbidden fruit, forbidding, fractiousness, grudging consent, grudgingness, head wind, ignoring, impugnation, impugnment, index, index expurgatorius, index librorum prohibitorum, indisposedness, indisposition, indocility, inhibition, injunction, interdict, interdiction, interdictum, intractableness, lack of enthusiasm, lack of zeal, law, mutinousness, negation, no-no, nolition, nonacceptance, nonapproval, nonconsideration, obstinacy, opposing, opposition, opposure, oppugnation, option, passing by, perfunctoriness, preclusion, preemption, prevention, privilege, prohibition, prohibitory injunction, proscription, putting away, putting out, rebuff, rebutment, rebuttal, recalcitrance, recalcitrancy, recantation, refractoriness, rejection, reluctance, renitence, renitency, renouncement, repression, repudiation, repugnance, repulse, resistance, restrictive covenants, right of emption, right of preemption, ruling out, scouting, slowness, snub, spurning, standing against, statute, stubbornness, sulk, sulkiness, sulks, sullenness, sumptuary laws, suppression, taboo, throwing out, traversal, turning out, undercurrent, unenthusiasm, unwillingness, zoning, zoning laws

Source: Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
 

refusal

Source: WordNet (r) 2.0
 

Refusal \Re*fus"al\ (-al), n.

1. The act of refusing; denial of anything demanded, solicited, or offered for acceptance.

Do they not seek occasion of new quarrels, On my refusal, to distress me more? --Milton.

2. The right of taking in preference to others; the choice of taking or refusing; option; as, to give one the refusal of a farm; to have the refusal of an employment.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)