What's the difference between assert and defend?

Assert


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To affirm; to declare with assurance, or plainly and strongly; to state positively; to aver; to asseverate.
  • (v. t.) To maintain; to defend.
  • (v. t.) To maintain or defend, as a cause or a claim, by words or measures; to vindicate a claim or title to; as, to assert our rights and liberties.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Parents believed they should try to normalize their child's experiences, that interactions with health care professionals required negotiation and assertiveness, and that they needed some support person(s) outside of the family.
  • (2) Jeremy Corbyn could learn a lot from Ken Livingstone | Hugh Muir Read more High-minded commentators will say that self-respect – as well as Burke’s dictum that MPs are more than delegates – should be enough to make members under pressure assert their independence.
  • (3) There are many examples to support his assertion, yet for the most part, it is celebrities who dictate what images can be published and what stories should be told.
  • (4) Neither assertion was strictly accurate, but Obama was on a rhetorical roll.
  • (5) Successful treatment also requires the use of assertive case management, community support, family support, and careful patient education.
  • (6) The UN-recognised parliament is expected to meet on Monday for a vital vote of confidence in the new administration, the next step in asserting its authority in the country.
  • (7) Fields said: "The assertions that Tom Cruise likened making a movie to being at war in Afghanistan is a gross distortion of the record... What Tom said, laughingly, was that sometimes, 'That's what it feels like.'"
  • (8) Is it a moment where culture needs to assert its values?
  • (9) She described Luke as being “open, honest and assertive” during the interview.
  • (10) Individuals in the middle received relatively large amounts of assertive behavior.
  • (11) No differences were observed on the behavioral role plays, which required assertion in a number of heterosexual situations.
  • (12) Bill Shorten has told the union royal commission he would “never be a party to issuing bogus invoices” as he rejected assertions that payments from employers to the Australia Workers’ Union created conflicts of interest during wage negotiations.
  • (13) Hawking's latest comments go beyond those laid out in his 2010 book, The Grand Design , in which he asserted that there is no need for a creator to explain the existence of the universe.
  • (14) Sitting on his stony porch, Rao asserts that he is not being romantic about the benefits of agriculture: “Here we earn more than 120,000 rupees [£1,170] a year, and our cost of living is one-fifth that of a city’s.
  • (15) But Clegg also says he is not going to be cowed into taking Cameron's vow of silence about Farage's assertion that he finds Britain unrecognisable and is uncomfortable at the lack of English spoken on commuter trains out of Charing Cross.
  • (16) We assert that OCD and AVN are relatively common, clinically significant lesions of the mandibular condyle often associated with preexisting internal derangement of the temporomandibular joint.
  • (17) On the basis of the results of the research the Authors conclude by asserting that the combined use of mannitol and propanol has a real protective effect in preventing or attenuating lesions of the kidney caused by serious acute renal failure.
  • (18) Grade said he objected to Dyke's assertion in the Times that he used information about the BBC's schedule when he quit as chairman of the corporation in late 2006 to move to ITV.
  • (19) The ethnomedical model asserts that efforts to secure the compliance of target populations are likely to be inadequate without an alliance between health professionals and communities to identify and address mutually comprehensible objectives that are perceived locally as meaningful and relevant.
  • (20) Moreover, the heterogeneity of ES components questions the assertion of previous workers that the allergenic, IgE-potentiating, and protective activities of larval ES can be ascribed to one molecular species.

Defend


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To ward or fend off; to drive back or away; to repel.
  • (v. t.) To prohibit; to forbid.
  • (v. t.) 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.
  • (v. t.) 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.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The Wales international and Port Vale defender Clayton McDonald both admitted having sex with the victim, – McDonald was found not guilty of the same charge.
  • (2) "What has made that worse is the disingenuous way the force has defended their actions.
  • (3) It arguably became too comfortable for Rodgers' team, with complacency and slack defending proving a dangerous brew.
  • (4) Joe, meanwhile, defends her right to say "negro" whenever she wants.
  • (5) Whittingdale also defended the right of MPs to use privilege to speak out on public interest matters.
  • (6) Madonna has defended her description of the leak of 13 unfinished demos from her forthcoming album as “a form of terrorism” and “artistic rape”.
  • (7) After an introductory note on primary preventive intervention of breast cancer during adulthood, the author defends and extends a hypothesis that relates most of the known risk factors for this disease to the development of preneoplastic lesions in the breast.
  • (8) Defendants on legal aid will no longer be able to choose their solicitor.
  • (9) All 17 candidates are going to be participating in debate night and I think that’s a wonderful opportunity Reince Priebus Republican party officials have defended the decision to limit participation, pointing out that the chasing pack will get a chance to debate separately before the main event.
  • (10) In mitigation, Gareth Jones, defending, said: "The first comment [he] wrote was in relation to Fabrice Muamba.
  • (11) "The Texas attorney general's office will continue to defend the Texas legislature's decision to prohibit abortion providers and their affiliates from receiving taxpayer dollars through the Women's Health Program."
  • (12) The philosopher defended his actions by referring to Pierre Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, naturally enough, but it didn't wash with HR.
  • (13) Later, Lucas, also a former party leader, strongly defended Bennett, saying it was a “bad day for Natalie” but there was also “kind of a gloating tone that strikes one as having something to do with her being a woman in there too”.
  • (14) Free speech has protected hate speech, and opponents of censorship have consistantly defended the rights of unscrupulous populists and incendiarists.
  • (15) "You could understand why I need another central defender," Mourinho said afterwards.
  • (16) The concept of a head of state as a "defender" of any sort of faith is uncomfortable in an age when religion is again acquiring a habit of militancy.
  • (17) Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, a vigorous defender of Israel, called the speech “ill-advised”.
  • (18) Everton ended with 10 men after Seamus Coleman limped off with all three substitutes deployed but there was no late flourish from a visiting team who, with Fernando replacing Kevin De Bruyne after the Irish defender’s departure, appeared content to settle for 1-2.
  • (19) "I never expected to get 100 caps and have the reception I did," said the Chelsea defender.
  • (20) He is shadow home secretary and will have to defend himself.