Deny wife leaving prison (6)
I believe the answer is:
negate
'deny' is the definition.
(I know that deny is a more specific form of the action negate)
I cannot understand how the remainder of the clue works.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for negate that I've seen before include "Make invalid" , "disallow!" , "Cause to have no effect" , "Deny the truth of" , "Render null or disprove" .)