Alphabet:
[d_ɪ_f_ˈɛ_n_d], [dɪfˈɛnd], [dɪfˈɛnd]
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Definitions of defend

  1.   To ward or fend off; to drive back or away; to repel.
  2.   be on the defensive; act against an attack
  3.   To protect; maintan; justify; vindicate; make defense.
  4.   Defender.
  5.   be the defense counsel for someone in a trial; " Ms. Smith will represent the defendant"
  6.   protect against a challenge or attack; " Hold that position behind the trees!"; " Hold the bridge against the enemy's attacks"
  7.   protect or fight for as a champion
  8.   argue or speak in defense of; " She supported the motion to strike"
  9.   To deny the right of the plaintiff in regard to ( the suit, or the wrong charged); to oppose or resist, as a claim at law; to contest, as a suit.
  10.   fight against or resist strongly; " The senator said he would oppose the bill"; " Don't fight it!"
  11.   To ward off; to maintain against an attack or a charge; to resist; to prohibit; to drive back a foe; to protect; to vindicate.
  12.   To repel danger or harm from; to protect; to secure against; attack; to maintain against force or argument; to uphold; to guard; as, to defend a town; to defend a cause; to defend character; to defend the absent; -- sometimes followed by from or against; as, to defend one's self from, or against, one's enemies.
  13.   To guard; protect; maintain against attack; resist in law.
  14.   Defendable.
  15.   To guard or protect from harm or violence; as, the navy defends our seacoast; maintain or uphold, as one's legal rights, by force of argument or evidence; contest, as a suit.
  16.   To enter defence.
  17.   state or assert; " He maintained his innocence"
  18.   To maintain or vindicate by force or argument; to secure against attack; to shelter; to cover; to guard; to resist or repel.
  19.   To prohibit; to forbid.

Antonyms for defend

calumniate, reexplore, beleaguer, rethink, capitulate, refute, forsake, yield, withdraw, quit, discard, resign, cease, disprove, rebut, disavow, asperse, forego, defame, desert, invade, expostulate, renege, controvert, disown, switch, assault, leave, incriminate, repudiate, cede, two-time, combat, storm, traduce, encounter, reconceive, backbite, reconsider, reexamine, take back, double cross, reweigh, indict, accuse, prosecute, oppugn, renounce, criminate, reverse, assail, retract, set upon, abnegate, relinquish, pounce, reject, refuse, fall upon, reevaluate, besiege, abandon, step aside, betray, remonstrate, cast off, sic, attack, recall, slander, surrender, abjure, abdicate, discontinue, beset, recant, set on, submit, unsay, give up, backstab, Readdress, vacate, overrun, bombard, forswear, deny, go in, revisit, cave, step down, bushwhack, redefine, libel, disclaim, reanalyze.

Quotes of defend

  1. Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can. – Samuel Adams
  2. But if our hopes are betrayed, if we are forced to resist the invasion of our soil, and to defend our threatened homes, this duty, however hard it may be, will find us armed and resolved upon the greatest sacrifices. – King Albert II
  3. Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage. – George W. Bush
  4. You do not defend a world that is already lost. – Garet Garrett
  5. As we look forward to freedom, the shining city on the hill and the best days of America lying ahead, it is the men and women in uniform who protect, defend and make us proud to whom we should look and give thanks every night. – Robin Hayes
  6. Since when do we have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? – Lillian Hellman
  7. These thieves defend themselves by saying, 'I was there all the time, and the officials missed me.' Favorite excuses for missing surveillance checkpoints: jacket covered the number took off the shirt with the number hidden in a crowd. – Joe Henderson
  8. It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea. – Hubert H. Humphrey
  9. I hate the Communists and have for many years and don't feel right about giving up my career to defend them. I will give up my film career if it is in the interests of defending something I believe in, but not this. – Elia Kazan
  10. We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite rich enough to educate ourselves as we need to be educated. – Walter Lippmann
  11. The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion but rather to know it. – Andre Maurois
  12. Thank God we're going to try to continue and effectively defend our frontiers with the Border Patrol, with the Customs Department, with the Coast Guard, with the Armed Forces. – Barry McCaffrey
  13. If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a "peace conference," you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes. – Joseph Stalin
  14. We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too. – Antonio Tabucchi
  15. There is nothing worth having that can he obtained by nuclear war- nothing material or ideological- no tradition that it can defend It is utterly self -defeating. – George Wald

Usage examples for defend

  1. “ You can't defend what you're doing. ” – The Fourth Series Plays, Complete by John Galsworthy
  2. “ They died to defend me! ” – The American Union Speaker by John D. Philbrick
  3. “ Come, draw, and defend yourself! ” – Robin Hood by J. Walker McSpadden
  4. “ I shall not be able to defend myself. ” – The Fortune of the Rougons by Emile Zola
  5. “ It fell to her to guard and defend her mother; and her father? ” – The End of a Coil by Susan Warner
  6. “ If Nance was innocent, why had she kept all this from him, why had she refused in the end to let him defend her good name? ” – Calvary Alley by Alice Hegan Rice
  7. “ As I helped to defend Mrs. Clarke, and as we won and she was proved to be an innocent woman, and as I believe in her and admire her very much, I'm sensitive for her. ” – In the Wilderness by Robert Hichens
  8. “ " Good, but why defend yourself? ” – Bohemians of the Latin Quarter by Henry Murger
  9. “ As to that, said Archer, he is your friend, and you are right to defend him; and I won't say another word against him. ” – The Parent's Assistant by Maria Edgeworth
  10. “ He turned to me again, before the bailiff could defend himself. ” – The Two Destinies by Wilkie Collins
  11. “ It can defend itself. ” – Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study by Dwight Moody
  12. “ But the farmer, because he hated Alister, and knew that Alister must have seen him running away, gave it out, that he himself was rushing to defend Mary, and that the blow that killed her was meant for him. ” – Warlock o' Glenwarlock by George MacDonald
  13. “ He loaded his gun and determined to defend himself. ” – Isaac T. Hopper by L. Maria Child
  14. “ He gave up at once; he didn't try to defend himself. ” – Indian Summer by William D. Howells
  15. “ But you must not think," she added, " that I defend my brother. ” – Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton
  16. “ For we are at such an age that we are no longer able to rule, much less to defend the empire." ” – The White Knight: Tirant lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell and Marti Johan d'Galba
  17. “ Defend himself as he would those who had arrested him knew too well how great a wrong they had done him, now to let him live. ” – The Golden Age in Transylvania by Mór Jókai
  18. “ But they're going to have this bright young lawyer defend him, and they have hopes. ” – Somewhere in Red Gap by Harry Leon Wilson
  19. “ He was obliged to keep watch and defend himself thus through all that long night. ” – A Desperate Voyage by Edward Frederick Knight
  20. “ I cried, anxious to defend poor Peter and his quixotic plot. ” – The Lightning Conductor Discovers America by C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

Rhymes for defend

Idioms for defend