Refudiating Sarah Palin's Refudiation

As the Bard wrote in Measure for Measure, "This news is old enough, yet it is every day's news." Sarah Palin made Twitter-headlines when she used the term "refudiate," and then defended herself by pointing out that George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and William Shakespeare all used new words themselves.

The real news is far more surprising: Though my word processor is yelling at me that this is not a real word, Shakespearian or otherwise, the First Folio tells a different story. Shakespeare used "refudiate" in at least a dozen passages from one of the errant copies circulating in Renaissance England! Palin shouldn't be defending herself. She should be reveling in her apparent mastery of Elizabethan vocabulary! Just look at these examples I found:

"Good Master Vernon, it is well refudiated:
If I drilleth not, I consume oil in silence."
--Henry VI Pt I

"A thousand lamentable refudiations there,
In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life..."
--The Rape of Lucrece

"We must not only arm to invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to refudiate
Against the Scot, who misunderestimate
Us, you betcha."
--Henry V

"Too cruel any where.
Dear Duff, I prithee, refudiate thyself,
And say Bristol be not married to Levi."
--Macbeth