0 to refuse to obey a person, decision, law, situation, etc.:
A few workers have defied the majority decision and gone into work despite the strike.
The fact that aircraft don't fall out of the sky always seems to me to defy (= act against) the law of gravity.
A forest fire raging in southern California is defying (= is not changed by) all attempts to control it.
The chaos at the airport defies description.
I defy you to prove your accusations.
I defy you to tell where I've painted over the scratch on my car.
1 to refuse to obey or to do something in the usual or expected way:
The mess in Bart's room defies description!
His remarkable recovery defied all medical augury.
In 1970 he defied the three-line whip against EC membership.
They defied convention by giving up their jobs and becoming self-sufficient.
Tom Cruise has performed his own stunts for Mission Impossible 2, defying warnings from professionals.
It is when a phenomenon defies understanding that it 'announces' itself, and stands out from the background, requiring interpretation.
Contemporary social scientists struggle with the problem of being precise about that which defies precision : the cloudiness of our own lives.
And, finally, there are those - the truly problematic cases - which defy exclusive classification.
