Meaning

verb disqualify oneself (as a judge) in a particular case

verb challenge or except to a judge as being incompetent or interested, in canon and civil law

originFrom Late Middle English recusen, from Old French recuser (modern French récuser (“to challenge; to impugn; (formal) to make an objection; (law) to recuse”), and from its etymon Latin recūsāre, the present active infinitive of recūsō (“to decline, refuse, reject; (law) to object to, protest”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’, denoting opposition or reversal) + causa (“cause, reason; (law) case,…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0