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say it: di-FEN-siv
defensive is an adjective and noun meaning "intended or appropriate for defending against or deterring aggression or attack". It carries 3 recorded senses.
intended or appropriate for defending against or deterring aggression or attack
“defensive weapons”
“a defensive stance”
attempting to justify or defend in speech or writing
an attitude of defensiveness (especially in the phrase `on the defensive')
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.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for defensive come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.