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defy
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
defy
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
beat/overcome/defy the odds (=succeed despite great difficulties)
▪ The baby, born sixteen weeks too early, defied the odds and is celebrating her first birthday.
defy common sense (=not be sensible)
▪ The proposed change in the law defies common sense.
defy convention (=not do what is accepted or normal)
▪ At the time she was defying convention by living with a man.
defy logic (=to not be reasonable)
▪ It defies logic to import food that we can grow more easily and cheaply here.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
openly
▪ But the relationship with Pataki deteriorated precipitously in recent days as McCaughey Ross openly defied him.
■ NOUN
ban
▪ He thought she was probably here without his permission, perhaps defying a specific ban.
convention
▪ To defy convention, surrender her virginity, to a man she neither loved nor desired must be quite out of the question.
▪ Amber, nevertheless, defied conventions, behaved outrageously, and pursued her man in a manner quite unusual for the 19405.
▪ He had been ready to defy the conventions and take on the world - and win! he thought.
▪ But thankfully, Leeann Tweeden defies this rotten convention-and how!
▪ You could, of course, defy convention and make all your early turns to the right.
court
▪ Faubus had defied the federal court.
death
▪ When he found her, he defied the power of Death to keep her from him; and Death yielded.
description
▪ Two other women lay upon the counter a pickle-bottle and a glass vessel of a kind which altogether defies description.
government
▪ Another backbencher was told his place on a Foreign Office organised trip would be withdrawn if he defied the Government.
▪ In effect, South Carolina had again successfully defied the national government.
▪ The Asaimara were thereby convinced they could successfully defy the Government.
▪ Would she send the troops in to show that nobody could defy the federal government?
▪ The conservatives surprised everyone by agreeing to defy the government and overspend by almost as much ... ten million.
▪ Gloucestershire County Council would defy the Government and spend an extra £10m.
gravity
▪ It should, because the gravity-defying performance of stocks in London and New York is eerily redolent of 1929.
law
▪ Miners' leader Arthur Scargill's call to defy Tory union laws was rejected.
▪ Two people who defied law enforcement barricades, and who were arrested and jailed, spoke at the meeting.
▪ They have rewritten the record books, stormed the male bastion of Grandmaster chess, and defied the laws of probability.
▪ They defy customs, laws and traditions in a move toward social, moral and political liberty.
▪ Bosses defied the law to woo last-minute Christmas shoppers from Oxford Street rivals.
▪ Like the rest of the glass, he wrote, it defies the second law of thermo-dynamics.
▪ In their anomalous behaviour electric arcs seemed to defy Ohm's Law and she discovered the cause of this.
▪ Apparently it defies the laws of physics.
logic
▪ For the song of the suffering servant helps unlock the mystery that defies logic.
▪ The Raiders could make a great second-half run, but that would defy logic.
▪ With all these artists' patches there are some sounds which are great and others which defy logic.
▪ It is an industry that, recently anyway, almost defies logic.
▪ This is a precious text, its publishers and authors are saying, that gloriously defies vulgar commercial logic.
▪ The rally has defied all odds and logic with only two, short interruptions since it began its climb in August 1982.
▪ When, defying logic, the Burt Bacharach horns come in, it's the pop moment at its life-affirming best.
▪ The afternoon stretches on and on, defying the logic of watch time.
odds
▪ In the event, the cyclist defied the odds and survived.
▪ That Jaime Guerrero is alive to attend the dinner probably defies the odds.
▪ This movie defied all the odds.
▪ The rally has defied all odds and logic with only two, short interruptions since it began its climb in August 1982.
order
▪ Of course, he defied doctor's orders, and in 1977 he died of a massive heart attack, aged sixty.
▪ Sunday, throngs of demonstrators defied orders to disperse.
▪ Together, the three formed a faction whose parliamentary members last October defied orders from their leadership and voted in favour of Maastricht.
▪ Even if we live as pure as nuns, we defy the patriarchal order just by existing.
▪ At home, Edna was in her final campaign against Jane Ming-li, who continued to defy the new order.
▪ An animal which can not be classified defies the order of things.
rule
▪ Helicopters appear to defy this rule by having wings that rotate within a disc.
▪ He was wildly irreverent, too, and loved nothing better than defying rules and deflating self-important petty officials.
▪ She ran a bath, defying the rule by more than half filling the tub instead of sticking to the permitted five inches.
▪ To act on or defy a socially established rule has effects on all who benefit or suffer by its observance.
■ VERB
seem
▪ In their anomalous behaviour electric arcs seemed to defy Ohm's Law and she discovered the cause of this.
▪ That trade that seems to defy conventional wisdom?
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Billy defied his mother, and smoked openly in the house.
▪ Scopes was forbidden to teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but he defied the law.
▪ She said she would defy the party leader and vote against him.
▪ This celebration of Thanksgiving defies tradition.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ For the song of the suffering servant helps unlock the mystery that defies logic.
▪ It is an industry that, recently anyway, almost defies logic.
▪ Its meteoric ascent defied the usual explanations.
▪ Only deer slots in the mud have defied the access restrictions.
▪ The conservatives surprised everyone by agreeing to defy the government and overspend by almost as much ... ten million.
▪ Through their various plights, the drama questions a world where feminine ideals regularly defy rational explanation.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
defy

defy \de*fy"\ (d[-e]*f[imac]"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Defied (d[-e]*f[imac]d"); p. pr. & vb. n. Defying.] [F. d['e]fier, OF. deffier, desfier, LL. disfidare to disown faith or fidelity, to dissolve the bond of allegiance, as between the vassal and his lord; hence, to challenge, defy; fr. L. dis- + fides faith. See Faith, and cf. Diffident, Affiance.]

  1. To renounce or dissolve all bonds of affiance, faith, or obligation with; to reject, refuse, or renounce. [Obs.]

    I defy the surety and the bond.
    --Chaucer.

    For thee I have defied my constant mistress.
    --Beau. & Fl.

  2. To provoke to combat or strife; to call out to combat; to challenge; to dare; to brave; to set at defiance; to treat with contempt; as, to defy an enemy; to defy the power of a magistrate; to defy the arguments of an opponent; to defy public opinion.

    I once again Defy thee to the trial of mortal fight.
    --Milton.

    I defy the enemies of our constitution to show the contrary.
    --Burke.

defy

defy \de*fy"\ (d[-e]*f[imac]"), n. A challenge. [Obs.]
--Dryden. [1913 Webster] ||

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
defy

c.1300, "to renounce one's allegiance;" mid-14c., "to challenge, defy," from Old French defier, desfier "to challenge, defy, provoke; renounce (a belief), repudiate (a vow, etc.)," from Vulgar Latin *disfidare "renounce one's faith," from Latin dis- "away" (see dis-) + fidus "faithful," from the same root as fides "faith" (see faith).

Wiktionary
defy

n. (context obsolete English) A challenge. vb. 1 To renounce or dissolve all bonds of affiance, faith, or obligation with; to reject, refuse, or renounce. 2 To challenge (someone) to do something difficult. 3 To refuse to obey.

WordNet
defy

  1. v. resist or confront with resistance; "The politician defied public opinion"; "The new material withstands even the greatest wear and tear"; "The bridge held" [syn: withstand, hold, hold up]

  2. elude, especially in a baffling way; "This behavior defies explanation" [syn: resist, refuse] [ant: lend oneself]

  3. challenge; "I dare you!" [syn: dare]

  4. [also: defied]

Wikipedia
Defy

To defy means to challenge or combat.

Defy may refer to:

  • Defy Appliances, a South African appliance manufacturer
  • Motorola Defy, an Android-based smartphone from Motorola
  • Defy Thirst, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

Usage examples of "defy".

I am ill at describing buildings, but the beauty and majesty of the American capitol might defy an abler pen than mine to do it justice.

What odds the yard had been turned into an Aceldama, if the System had been defied?

Who are these angels, these Companions, to defy the will of Adonai and be worshipped as gods?

Amefel, the earls must either swear to a man neither aetheling nor Aswydd, or they must defy the Marhanen king, precipitating the very crisis Cefwyn had avoided when he deposed and exiled Orien Aswydd and appointed a viceroy over the province.

She answered with perfect calm that I had nothing to expect from her as she did not love me, and as for keeping the secret she defied me to disclose it.

For thirteen days Barnett and his government had flamboyantly 86AN AMERICAN INSURRECTION defied the force and majesty of federal law.

The deficiency is sometimes so subtle biochemically that it defies easy test.

Then she immediately slipped the sleeveless bliaut back on before he noticed that she was, in fact, defying him again in solving the problem of getting wet in her own way.

A few years earlier, professional baseball players had been granted free agency by a court of law, and, after about two seconds of foot-shuffling, baseball owners put prices on players that defied the old commonsensical notions of what a baseball player should be paid.

Turning as they heard his defy, the crooks saw The Shadow, wheeling in from the blackness outside the loading yard, into the glow of lights from along the truck platform.

How the justices who later dissented could have brought themselves to join this per curiam opinion defies understandingunless they, too, were playing a game, trying to prevent a result with which they disagreed by forestalling the possibility that the Court would have to overrule the state court.

I knew, a bottle of fingernail polish Gina had left on the dressing table went flying, and, defying all gravitational law, landed upside down in the suitcase she had placed on the floor at the end of the daybed, around seven or eight feet away.

Genetic modification is surely a dynamist agenda, for the many mingled effects of changed genes defy detailed prediction.

Blake knew, at that sound, that Tankred or one of his men was firing straight into the dial of the searchlight, that Tankred himself intended to defy what must surely be an Ecuadorean gunboat.

She perched on the edge of the seat, defying all its ergonomic potential.