defection

Other forms of defection

plural

defections·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about defection

What does defection mean?

defection means "withdrawing support or help despite allegiance or responsibility". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in defection?

defection has 3 syllables: de-fec-tion. The stress falls on "fec". In IPA it is /dɪˈfɛkʃən/.

What is another word for defection?

Close synonyms include desertion, abandonment, apostasy, renunciation. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is defection a common word?

defection is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with defection?

7 words rhyme with defection. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.