Library / English Dictionary

DEFY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: defied   

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Challenge

Example:

I dare you!

Synonyms:

dare; defy

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "defy" is one way to...):

challenge (issue a challenge to)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "defy"):

brazen (face with defiance or impudence)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody to INFINITIVE

Sentence example:

They defy him to write the letter

Derivation:

defiance (a hostile challenge)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Resist or confront with resistance

Example:

The bridge held

Synonyms:

defy; hold; hold up; withstand

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "defy" is one way to...):

hold out; resist; stand firm; withstand (stand up or offer resistance to somebody or something)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "defy"):

brave; brave out; endure; weather (face and withstand with courage)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

defiant (boldly resisting authority or an opposing force)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Elude, especially in a baffling way

Example:

This behavior defies explanation

Synonyms:

defy; refuse; resist

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "defy" is one way to...):

elude; escape (be incomprehensible to; escape understanding by)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "defy"):

beggar (be beyond the resources of)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Antonym:

lend oneself (be applicable to; as to an analysis)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me—but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"I think," replied Edward, "that I may defy many months to produce any good to me."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He came back gay and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse, and defying Miss Smith.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Anything was possible, anything might be defied rather than suspense.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

A new paper reports a staggering degree of biological diversity that defies contemporary definitions of microbial species and illuminates reasons behind challenges in metagenomic studies.

(Study analyzing cells' blueprints reveals new patterns in the global distribution and diversity of ocean microbes, National Science Foundation)

But I defies you.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But I defy the treasurer, or his two informers (I will name them, and let them make the best of it) Clustril and Drunlo, to prove that any person ever came to me incognito, except the secretary Reldresal, who was sent by express command of his imperial majesty, as I have before related.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It is now half after one; we drove out of the inn-yard at Tetbury as the town clock struck eleven; and I defy any man in England to make my horse go less than ten miles an hour in harness; that makes it exactly twenty-five.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Finding that their secret was out, and that their prisoner was not to be coerced, the two villains with the girl had fled away at a few hours’ notice from the furnished house which they had hired, having first, as they thought, taken vengeance both upon the man who had defied and the one who had betrayed them.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An area, as large perhaps as Sussex, has been lifted up en bloc with all its living contents, and cut off by perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all the rest of the continent.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)