What's the difference between defy and refuse?

Defy


Definition:

  • (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.

Refuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deny, as a request, demand, invitation, or command; to decline to do or grant.
  • (v. t.) To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the center, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular aligment when troops ar/ about to engage the enemy; as, to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks.
  • (v. t.) To decline to accept; to reject; to deny the request or petition of; as, to refuse a suitor.
  • (v. t.) To disown.
  • (v. i.) To deny compliance; not to comply.
  • (n.) Refusal.
  • (n.) That which is refused or rejected as useless; waste or worthless matter.
  • (a.) Refused; rejected; hence; left as unworthy of acceptance; of no value; worthless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We were instantly refused entrance by the heavies at the door.
  • (2) There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.
  • (3) Such a science puts men in a couple of scientific laws and suppresses the moment of active doing (accepting or refusing) as a sufficient preassumption of reality.
  • (4) There were no deaths but one refused to have ketamine again.
  • (5) That’s a criticism echoed by Democrats in the Senate, who issued a report earlier this month criticising Republicans for passing sweeping legislation in July to combat addiction , the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (Cara), but refusing to fund it.
  • (6) She successfully appealed against the council’s decision to refuse planning permission, but neighbours have launched a legal challenge to be heard at the high court in June.
  • (7) Tony Abbott has refused to concede that saying Aboriginal people who live in remote communities have made a “lifestyle choice” was a poor choice of words as the father of reconciliation issued a public plea to rebuild relations with Indigenous people.
  • (8) The military is not being honest about the number of men on strike: most of us are refusing to eat.
  • (9) But employers who have followed a fair procedure may have the right to discipline or finally dismiss any smoker who refuses to accept the new rules.
  • (10) Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker has refused to say whether he believes in the theory of evolution, arguing that it is “a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other”.
  • (11) But in a setback to the UK, Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991, refused British entreaties to attend on the grounds that it would not have been treated as equal to the Somali government.
  • (12) Ten patients had been treated by adrenalectomy, one patient by radiotherapy of the hypophysis, and one patient had refused any treatment.
  • (13) What if the court of justice refuses to answer the question?
  • (14) The only thing the media will talk about in the hours and days after the debate will be Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the results of the election, making him appear small, petty and conspiratorial.
  • (15) A small band of shadow cabinet members have lined up to refuse to serve in posts they haven’t even been offered, on the basis of objection to economic policies they clearly haven’t read.
  • (16) The prerequisite for all champions is the refusal to cave in, so City's equaliser with only three minutes remaining was pleasing.
  • (17) Black males with low intentions to use condoms reported significantly more negative attitudes about the use of condoms (eg, using condoms is disgusting) and reacted with more intense anger when their partners asked about previous sexual contacts, when a partner refused sex without a condom, or when they perceived condoms as interfering with foreplay and sexual pleasure.
  • (18) As long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to the release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements, while Israel continuously violates them,” Abbas said.
  • (19) The people who will lose are not the commercial interests, and people with particular vested interests, it’s the people who pay for us, people who love us, the 97% of people who use us each week, there are 46 million people who use us every day.” Hall refused to be drawn on what BBC services would be cut as a result of the funding deal which will result in at least a 10% real terms cut in the BBC’s funding.
  • (20) These letters are also written during a period when Joyce was still smarting from the publishing difficulties of his earlier works Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Gordon Bowker, Joyce’s biographer, agreed: “Joyce’s problem with the UK printers related to the fact that here in those days printers were as much at risk of prosecution on charges of publishing obscenities as were publishers, and would simply refuse to print them.