Late Middle English (in an earlier sense). From Middle French redarguer (French rédarguer) to convince (a person) that their contention is false, to refute (a person), to blame, to accuse, to reprehend, rebuke, to disprove and its etymon classical Latin redarguere to convict (a person) of falsehood, prove wrong, to prove untrue, refute, in post-classical Latin also to reprove, rebuke from red-, variant (before a vowel) of re- + arguere.