What does abjure mean?

Abjure means to formally renounce under oath; in the Oath of Allegiance the new citizen abjures all allegiance and fidelity to foreign sovereigns. The word appears in the first clause of the oath, which reads in part: "I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty." The two verbs renounce and abjure are paired and roughly synonymous, both expressing the formal abandonment of prior loyalties under oath.

Abjure comes from the Latin abjurare, meaning to deny on oath, and it has a long history in English legal usage going back at least to medieval ecclesiastical and treason proceedings. The pairing of the two verbs in the U.S. oath reflects the early-republic drafting tradition of using doubled words to capture the full force of an obligation, similar to phrases such as "will and testament" or "cease and desist."

The legal effect of abjuring foreign allegiance is the same as the effect of renouncing it: the new citizen formally commits primary loyalty to the United States. The clause does not require applicants to disclaim cultural, linguistic, or family ties to their countries of origin, and it does not by itself extinguish dual citizenship under the law of the other country. Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. section 1481) sets out the separate, narrow circumstances in which a U.S. citizen may lose U.S. citizenship, requiring intent to relinquish nationality. The renounce-and-abjure pairing is one of several legal doublets preserved in U.S. naturalization law that trace back to early-republic legal drafting practice and English common-law tradition.