(v. t.) To renounce or dissolve all bonds of affiance, faith, or obligation with; to reject, refuse, or renounce.
(v. t.) 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.
(n.) A challenge.
Example Sentences:
(1) For his lone, perilous journey that defied the US occupation authorities, Burchett was pilloried, not least by his embedded colleagues.
(2) "We have Revolutionary Guards who defied orders, though they were severely punished, expelled from the force and taken to prison," he says.
(3) He said his party was determined to go ahead with the poll, even if it meant defying Spain's constitutional court, which Rull dismissed as biased.
(4) When several of its semi-autonomous cars were caught running red lights, the state ordered their removal from the road – an order Uber openly defied , blaming the traffic light violations on “human error” and suspending the people monitoring the cars.
(5) Speaker Paul Ryan and majority leader Kevin McCarthy, the two top House Republicans, had argued in Monday’s meeting – held with no prior notice – against making the unilateral ethics change, calling for a bipartisan approach at a later date, but rank-and-file Republicans defied their leadership.
(6) Heidi Allen, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, abstained in last week’s vote but said she and others would defy the party whip if concessions were not offered.
(7) Barack Obama has defied a Republican Congress to move ahead on his climate agenda on Wednesday, cracking down on methane emissions from America’s oil and natural gas boom.
(8) The home secretary, Theresa May , has defied her own expert advisers and banned qat, a mild herbal stimulant that is traditionally used by Britain's Somali, Yemeni and Ethiopian communities.
(9) No call for the resurrection of the proud, shared traditions of Scots, Welsh and English people as they defied the powerful to build a better society; no convincing pledge that a new Britain would be forged, just and equal and fair unlike what New Labour failed to deliver.
(10) Some samples with complex patterns defied classification, and it is speculated that these may be from persons with duplicated C7 genes.
(11) Sales on the high street were much higher than expected this month, rising at their fastest rate in six years as consumers defied the gloomy economic outlook.
(12) But the instruction issued by the party headquarters in Paris was defied by the Socialist candidate in the Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine region, who came third but announced he would stand for the second round anyway.
(13) This was the childhood playground of actor Richard Harris, where he performed death-defying handstands and cycling tricks on the cliffside walls when not showboating by the sea.
(14) Just as no single description is universally applicable to the mode of action of vitamin A derivatives, so too do their toxic effects defy generalization.
(15) He has been held without charges since his arrest on 5 June but has been informed that under martial law he faces up to 14 years in prison on possible charges of inciting unrest, violating cyber laws and defying the junta's orders.
(16) Writers should be making more of an effort to write interesting parts for actors of colour that defy stereotypes, or implementing a Geena Davis type solution (simply change any character in a script into a woman) for race.
(17) It defies the logic of personal ambition that grows stronger with proximity to the biggest job in the world.
(18) It was so I could tell Jeremy that I had backed him.” Corbyn has defied not only Fletcher’s expectations but everyone else’s.
(19) But, since then, it has fallen to around $1,660 (£1,047) defying predictions – and the hopes of speculators – that it would continue to hit new peaks during the ongoing financial turmoil.
(20) For the last five months, he has enjoyed unprecedented political dominance, after an election where the SNP defied the logic of Holyrood's semi-proportional system by winning an absolute majority, sweeping into power with nearly 50% of the vote.
Deify
Definition:
(v. t.) To make a god of; to exalt to the rank of a deity; to enroll among the deities; to apotheosize; as, Julius Caesar was deified.
(v. t.) To praise or revere as a deity; to treat as an object of supreme regard; as, to deify money.
(v. t.) To render godlike.
Example Sentences:
(1) Built in 1869, the shrine deifies almost 2.5 million Japanese soldiers and civilians who died in wars since the second half of the 19th century.
(2) Well, there’s one boss the Curia surely won’t be deifying this Christmas.
(3) You become aware of a colossal idea,” he wrote after visiting the International Exhibition, showcase of an all-conquering material culture: “You sense that it would require great and everlasting spiritual denial and fortitude in order not to submit, not to capitulate before the impression, not to bow to what is, and not to deify Baal, that is, not to accept the material world as your ideal.” However, as Dostoevsky saw it, the cost of such splendour and magnificence was a society dominated by the war of all against all, in which most people were condemned to be losers.
(4) The assembled clerics were accused of “spiritual Alzheimer’s”, “the terrorism of gossip”, lack of self-criticism, supposing themselves indispensable, of forming cliques, fixating on office politics, of “out of jealousy or cunning [finding] joy in seeing another fall, rather than helping him up and encouraging him”, or “theatrical severity and sterile pessimism” and, of course, of “the sickness of deifying leaders”.
(5) We mustn’t deify him at all from that point of view, he was a man of many flaws, but he was a man of great genius, great charm, great humour and he was, in his quiet moments, fascinating.” Joining the greats of boxing past and present who took to social media to voice tributes to Ali, the former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson tweeted: “God came for his champion.
(6) The earlier version said "reified" where "deified" was meant.
(7) He was, after all, born into a family of independent spirit, to a scientist father, who was also a political radical who deified the environment.
(8) And perhaps this desire to deify the singer, to stress her purity and goodness, reflected something prevalent at that time, namely an anxiety about the moral status of singing, the probity of performance, of The Stage.
(9) Some do and are deified as supreme beings, but to look to celebrity to provide social mobility is not good enough.
(10) I know that youth is deified, but I stress about FOMO and envy the Instagrammed social lives of others.
(11) In Chinese cosmology, cosmic elements have been deified and assigned life-forms.
(12) It was easier to let defence lawyers pronounce that " respectable women in India aren't raped ", and gurus on television blame or deify the fairer sex.