Meaning

3 senses
  1. (countable, uncountable)The feeling, or spirit of being defiant.

    Trotz, Auflehnung, Widerstand

    непоко́рствоnepokórstvo, неповинове́ниеnepovinovénije, пренебреже́ниеprenebrežénije

    a defiant act

  2. (countable, uncountable)Open or bold resistance to or disregard for authority, opposition, or power; refusing to give up.

    offener Ungehorsam, Widersetzung

    спро́тивsprótyv

  3. (countable, uncountable)A challenging attitude or behaviour; challenge.

    anstrengendes Verhalten, problematische Haltung, Herausforderung

    a hostile challenge

Examples

14 sentences
  1. Tom's brazen act of defiance almost cost him his life.

  2. She got married in defiance of her father.

    ruОна вышла замуж наперекор отцовской воле. — Tonari

    deSie hat gegen den Willen ihres Vaters geheiratet. — Pfirsichbaeumchen

  3. He said this with an air of defiance.

  4. He kept on drinking in defiance of his doctor's warning.

    deEr trank weiter unter Missachtung der Warnungen seinen Arztes. — samueldora

  5. His brazen act of defiance almost cost him his life.

Translations

9 languages
Українська
By meaning 1
open resistance to authority, opposition, or power:
Русский
By meaning 1
the feeling of being defiant:
Deutsch
By meaning 3
the feeling of being defiant:
open resistance to authority, opposition, or power:
challenging attitude or behaviour; challenge:

Origin

From Middle English defiaunce, from Old French desfiance, from desfier. By surface analysi

From Middle English defiaunce, from Old French desfiance, from desfier. By surface analysis, defy + -ance.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: defiances
Singulardefiance
Pluraldefiances

regular

Synonyms

1 synonyms
Close in meaning

Word family

3 related words

See also

neighbours in the dictionary

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

defiance — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto