(v. t.) To keep off; to prevent from entering or hitting; to ward off; to shut out; -- often with off; as, to fend off blows.
(v. i.) To act on the defensive, or in opposition; to resist; to parry; to shift off.
Example Sentences:
(1) But from then on, he said, he and his family have essentially been left to fend for themselves.
(2) Duncan Smith is also seeking EU allies to fend off European commission legal proceedings claiming that Britain has introduced an additional right to reside test that indirectly discriminates against EU citizens.
(3) The George Bush campaign juggernaut hit the first serious pothole of its cash-fuelled drive to the presidency yesterday, as the Texas governor tried in vain to fend off questions about whether he had used cocaine as a young man.
(4) What a transformation for Coleman who, just over a year ago, had to fend off calls for the sack.
(5) Mr Graham's play deals with the dramatic years of the 1974-9 Labour government, when Labour's whipping operation, masterminded by the fabled Walter Harrison, involved life or death decisions to fend off Margaret Thatcher's Tories.
(6) The claim has stunned a community who knew him not as a pale spectre in Taliban videos but as the tall, affable young man who served coffee and deftly fended off jokes about Billy Elliot – he did ballet along with karate, fencing, paragliding and mountain biking.
(7) George Osborne has fended off Conservative MPs anxious at proposed cuts to tax credits at a private meeting of party’s 1922 backbench committee, by insisting the changes have to go ahead and warning that if he had not acted then £15bn worth of spending cuts would have to be found elsewhere.
(8) Clinton trained her fire on Trump as she continues to fend off her Democratic challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders , who has narrowed the primary race in California.
(9) The rest, drowning in credit card debts – and remember the predatory interest rates some cards charge – or surrounded by loan sharks, will have to fend for themselves.
(10) Snapchat has fended off Facebook already If teens are using Snapchat more and Facebook less, you'll understand why the social network might want to buy or kill it.
(11) In an attempt to fend off accusations that the comprehensive spending review (CSR) - which aims to cut spending in inflation-adjusted terms by £83bn over the next four years - is disproportionately harsh on the less fortunate, Osborne is insisting that the banks - widely blamed for causing the crisis - should pay their share of the financial clean-up operation by signing new tax agreements.
(12) In 2010, the authorities also rushed through changes to labour laws designed to fend off demands from local unions for better working conditions.
(13) Why aren’t they flooding the Senate with phone calls in favor of making people fend for themselves in the healthcare insurance market?
(14) "These animals go on to die of gangrene or other secondary infections, sometimes leaving nursing puppies abandoned to fend for themselves."
(15) So at this time of rock bottom returns, where can savers turn to make something from their cash and fend off inflation?
(16) In their 125th year, the Rooks fended off bankruptcy to become Lewes Community Football Club, thus joining AFC Wimbledon, FC United of Manchester and Exeter City, among others, as collective entities.
(17) Since swooping for the Premier League rights last year (fending off the incumbent partnership of ESPN and Fox, as well as a large bid from the Al Jazeera owned beIN Sports channel) NBC have been aggressively promoting the thoroughness of their coverage, which offers subscribers to their sports network channel NBCSN an additional range of channels showing every game live.
(18) What’s needed The main priority is fending off interest in striker Danny Ings, who is out of contract in the summer, a cut-price option for several rivals but also essential to Burnley’s prospects of staying up.
(19) An important part of the answer lies in a court of appeal judgment from 1998, which says single homeless people are not given priority for housing assistance when homeless, unless they are “less able to fend for himself than an ordinary homeless person so that injury or detriment to him will result when a less vulnerable person would be able to cope without harmful effects”.
(20) The group has paid £1.18bn to fend off Sky and renew exclusive broadcast rights for Champions League and Europa League football.
Forfend
Definition:
(v. t.) To prohibit; to forbid; to avert.
Example Sentences:
(1) And also, heaven forfend, if you want to unsubscribe.
(2) (Heaven forfend some black lady should be in the dressing room, right?
(3) Instead, their smaller stores have enabled us to make shopping for food a small part of some other excursion – to meet a friend for a drink, walk the dog, go to the hairdresser or the gym, go – heaven forfend – to the butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker as well.
(4) If (heaven forfend) the politicians of your side ever disappoint you, that is even more a reason to stay in the conversation, rather than leave it.
(5) It has fallen to Pius XII to denounce Communist ideology in such an implacable manner as to forfend a series of schisms on the part of Catholics tempted to yield to Communist blandishments.
(6) Heaven forfend that this be taken as either a gimmick or a giveaway: the chancellor had made a self-denying ordinance against both.
(7) School children would have to leave their seats and, heaven forfend, talk to each other during lessons.