defy

Other forms of defy

past tense or participle

defied

present participle

defying·

third person

defies·

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 defy

What does defy mean?

defy means "resist or confront with resistance". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in defy?

defy has 2 syllables: de-fy. The stress falls on "fy". In IPA it is /dɪˈfaɪ/.

What is another word for defy?

Close synonyms include withstand, hold, hold up, resist, refuse. 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.

What is the opposite of defy?

The recorded antonyms are lend oneself.

Is defy a common word?

defy is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. 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 defy?

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