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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Defended

Defend \De*fend"\ (d[-e]*f[e^]nd"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Defended; p. pr. & vb. n. Defending.] [F. d['e]fendre, L. defendere; de- + fendere (only in comp.) to strike; perh. akin to Gr. qei`nein to strike, and E. dint. Cf. Dint, Defense, Fend.]

  1. To ward or fend off; to drive back or away; to repel. [A Latinism & Obs.]

    Th' other strove for to defend The force of Vulcan with his might and main.
    --Spenser.

  2. To prohibit; to forbid. [Obs.]
    --Chaucer.

    Which God defend that I should wring from him.
    --Shak.

  3. 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.

    The lord mayor craves aid . . . to defend the city.
    --Shak.

    God defend the right!
    --Shak.

    A village near it was defended by the river.
    --Clarendon.

  4. (Law.) 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.
    --Burrill.

    Syn: To Defend, Protect.

    Usage: To defend is literally to ward off; to protect is to cover so as to secure against approaching danger. We defend those who are attacked; we protect those who are liable to injury or invasion. A fortress is defended by its guns, and protected by its wall.

    As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it.
    --Is. xxxi.

  5. Leave not the faithful side That gave thee being, still shades thee and protects.
    --Milton.

Wiktionary
defended

vb. (en-past of: defend)

Usage examples of "defended".

Only the year before, in 1769, Adams had defended four American sailors charged with killing a British naval officer who had boarded their ship with a press gang to grab them for the British navy.

Of course when the wall yields and the breach has to be defended the warehouses will be held, and as the windows will command the breach they will be great aids to us then, and it would be a great disadvantage to us if the Spaniards now were to throw shells and fireballs into these houses, and so to destroy them before they make their attack.

I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, proposed and defended by that accomplished Algonkin scholar, the Rev.

This is one of a growing number of incidents in which the rights of runaways are defended by antislavery forces in the northern states.

Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he appeared at the head of a great body of fanatic peasants, armed only with slings, and defended his god and his property from the sacrilegious hands of the followers of Zoroaster.

Some writers say, that this war was not waged with the Apulians, but that the allied states of that nation were defended against the violence and injustice of the Samnites.

In one of the most dramatic and heartening actions, much of which is still secret, Beaumont threw his small force of destroyers against a heavily defended German base on the coast of Norway.

Geake all these bits and pieces of evidence were dredged up to bolster the view that Bedaux was in the pay of the Axis powers, trying to find out if Alaska could be defended successfully from the interior.

I forgot to say that when I would have slurred the excellence of the Baldwin in comparison with the Bellflower, Horace began at once to interpose objections, and defended the excellence and perfection of that variety.

Sapor could lead an army into the field, he received the melancholy intelligence of the devastation of Assyria, the ruin of his palaces, and the slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended the passage of the Tigris.

The other two losses fell to the Flak batteries of Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven when the bombers concerned strayed and flew near those strongly defended cities.

The prince of Bevern, with the greatest part of the army, retired to an eminence on the banks of the Oder, whilst the rest of the troops threw themselves into Breslau, which they might have defended, in all probability, till the king had come to its relief.

Indeed, this reaffirmation of his enduring life history depended in many ways on the emergence of a new generation of Romantic liberals who defended the legacy of the French Revolution in their publications, plotted for political changes in organizations such as the Carbonari, advocated liberty for every European nationality, and looked for symbolic figures to represent their ideas and their goals.

The whole English line was now engaged, and the Virginians defended themselves so well that Lord Cornwallis was obliged to call up his reserves.

The majority per curiam opinion is likely to become one of the most analyzed, criticized, and defended opinions in the history of the Supreme Court.