nego

Nego, negare, negavi, negatum, first conjugation, built from nec plus the root of aio: "to say not".

Two constructions carry it. With a dative of person and accusative of thing it means "refuse": negare alicui auxilium, "to refuse someone help". With an accusative and infinitive it is the standard Latin for "say that ... not" - negat se venisse, "he says he did not come". A Roman does not write dicit se non venisse; he negates the verb of speaking instead, and getting that reflex right is half of handling indirect statement. The family is large: nego, denego, abnego (which this corpus also carries), the adjective negativus of late grammar, and English negate, negative, renegade and, through French denier, deny.