resist or confront with resistance; "The politician defied public opinion"; "The new material withstands even the greatest wear and tear"; "The bridge held"
Used in a Sentence
defy
How to use defy in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for defy.
Editorial note
You can say that all you want, and I defy you.
Examples9
Definitions3
Parts of speech1
Quick take
resist or confront with resistance; "The politician defied public opinion"; "The new material withstands even the greatest wear and tear"; "The bridge held"
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of defy gathered in one view.
elude, especially in a baffling way; "This behavior defies explanation"
challenge; "I dare you!"
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for defy.
verb
resist or confront with resistance; "The politician defied public opinion"; "The new material withstands even the greatest wear and tear"; "The bridge held"
verb
elude, especially in a baffling way; "This behavior defies explanation"
verb
challenge; "I dare you!"
See also: dare
Example sentences
You can say that all you want, and I defy you.
Does it defy the laws of the universe, physics, and the axioms in math?
Do this, they say, and we won't throw the book at you. But defy us, and we have all manner of perfectly legal tools we can use against you.
"There may be some exceptional people who can defy this rule, and it's possible they are concentrated in startups, but I'm dubious."Right.
Not only were the engineers brave enough to defy Jobs, but also Jobs being able to admit his own mistake and not fire the entire team upon finding out.
Even compared to greats like Michael Jordan, the statistical significance of his achievements almost defy belief.
There is no magical flag that allows all mail sent by anyone at Microsoft to hit your Hotmail inbox: that could easily be abused, and for many users it would defy their expectations.
And I even see this as possibly essential to their success - you can't create products that defy conventional expectations unless you are slightly crazy - "the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that actually do" truly fits.
I defy anyone to claim that the time and money to configure cloud services to be reliable per all these recommendations is harder than setting up equivalent equipment on-site or with dedicated hosting and a decent off-site backup system, assuming that you have someone who knows what they are doing in each case to do the work.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use defy in a sentence?
You can say that all you want, and I defy you.
What does defy mean?
resist or confront with resistance; "The politician defied public opinion"; "The new material withstands even the greatest wear and tear"; "The bridge held"
What part of speech is defy?
defy is commonly used as verb.