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# defy

«defy» in Mova's school dictionary: **to refuse openly to obey them** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

verb (defy, defies, defied, defying)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To defy someone is to refuse openly to obey them. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/defy/#m1)

2) To defy something, such as a law or danger, is to face it boldly as if it cannot beat you. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/defy/#m2)

3) To defy someone is also to dare them to do something. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/defy/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

in stories a hero defies a king or a magic spell; in lessons, to stand up against rules

### examples

- I defy you to catch me! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/defy/#x1)
- The girl defied her teacher and stayed outside. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/defy/#x2)
- The climbers defied the storm and reached the top. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/defy/#x3)

### note

nothing for maths

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «defy» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/defy/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.