0 present participle of defy
1 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.
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.
By the same token, politicians who choose restrictive fiscal and monetary policies over more expansionary alternatives are not necessarily defying the laws of political gravity.
Leaving the arsenals meant defying state policy, as the worker went up against a barrage of government regulations designed to control the labor market.
In defying formal agreement, writers may be using notional agreement to broaden the scope of their reference and their argument.
