deny = 'to affirm (the opposite of something)'

[Jonathan Lighter]

I've heard this construction on TV news twice before, only within the past
year or two:

http://artsfuse.org/49835/fuse-interview-s-t-joshi-on-ambrose-bierce-the-underappreciated-genius-of-being-grim/
 :

"Some Bierce scholars, notably Lawrence I. Berkove, are eager to deny that
Bierce was not a misanthrope—that he did not *hate* human beings in the
mass but was merely *disappointed* with them. I generally agree with that
view."

The word is used correctly in the very next sentence.

JL

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org