It’s always good to get the image or the feel of what a word wants to say.
To refuse does not involve a lot of effort. If you would refuse something with overly effort then it would not be possible to do so. It doesn’t involve to convince someone.
In German the word for it is ablehnen. Ab meaning away and lehnen meaning to lean. Leaning off. Like a ball that bumps off of you. There is also something about angle in it.
In Russian it means отказаться. от meaning also off or away, just like ab in German. Kasatsja meaning to touch meaning “won’t touch this”.
Another image that comes to mind is to drop something in case one caught it.
Then, kasatsja means also to concern, which in German is betreffen. Treffen meaning to score lets say a bull’s eye or something or a goal actually too :), to not miss. But if you would refuse then you would be covering the whole goal and without your agreement, the ball does not go in, nor is there neccessarily any attempt to score, nor a goal at all.
So, betreffen means what it means concerning this or that, with regards to. There is interest in something, concern, attention to something or someone.
When refusing is expressed we say No. Or we say “I refuse” or actually “I reject”. Both reject and refuse mean ablehnen. So actually I am not really writing about refusing but rejecting or saying no because to refuse means rather to deny or withhold. Or Idk and it doesn’t matter because the images are there or the feel of it. What the actual word is, doesn’t really matter too much. Expressing these things can be very respectful because it is understood. It’s a bit like walking down the road and there is 2 people in the way but you know that they will make space.
assertive1liners 