attackverb(HURT)
[ I or T ]
to speak or write in support of someone or something:
He vigorously defended his point of view.
The president was asked how he could defend a policy that increased unemployment.
The general rallied his forces to defend the town.将军召集他的部队守卫这座城市。
The system is designed to defend against long-range missiles.
Police officers used riot shields to defend themselves.
A female lion defends her young ferociously.
In the past, the party would have closed ranks around its leader and defended him loyally.要是放在以前，该党会紧紧团结在其领袖周围，忠心地维护他。
Should the church always defend traditional values, or be open to changing them?

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Defending and protecting
air defence
anti-bug
anti-mosquito
baby
bandobast
cocoon
duck
duck and coveridiom
embedded
featherbedding
fight back
hedge
insulate
poisonous
security camera
security light
self-protective
self-protectiveness
shelter
smother

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Backing, supporting & defending

defendverb (IN LAW)

[ I or T ]
to try to prove in court that someone who has been accused of something is not guilty:
He is a lawyer who has defended many famous clients.
The accused opted to defend himself in court.
The company has spent a lot of money defending the case.
Jane Clarke, defending, said that her client had struggled with his mental health.
defend againstShe vowed to vigorously defend against the allegations.
The lawyer defending the students asked the judge to dismiss the charges.
They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending against negligence claims.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Court cases, orders & decisions
actionable
actionably
administer
admissibility
admissible
extinguishment
extrajudicial
extrajudicially
fatal accident inquiry
federal case
pettifoggery
pettifogging
plea bargain
plea bargaining
pleading
the Webster ruling
waiver
walk
walk freeidiom
wardship

defendverb (IN SPORT)

[ T ]
to compete in a sports competition that you won before and try to win it again: （运动比赛中）卫冕;蝉联冠军
He will defend his 1,500 metre title this weekend.他会在周末1500米比赛中争取卫冕。
The defending champion will play her first match of the tournament tomorrow.卫冕冠军将在明天进行她在此次锦标赛中的第一场比赛。
[ I ]
to try to prevent the opposing player or players from scoring points, goals, etc. in a sport: （在体育比赛中）防守，防卫
In the last ten minutes of the game, we needed to defend.我们得在比赛的最后十分钟内进行防守。

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Competing in sport
bring
bring someone on
bye
bye week
catchup
contention
duel
explosive
field
gear
go the distanceidiom
match
non-competitor
outduel
park the busidiom
partner up
play bigidiom
square
step/move up a gearidiom
weigh

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

General terms used in ball sports

Examples of defended

defended

In English, many past and present participles of verbs can be used as adjectives. Some of these examples may show the adjective use.

A coercive pattern as compared to a defended pattern did not significantly predict disruptive behavior in the regression analyses.
Few studies exist that have investigated the relationship between a defended pattern and disruptive behavior.
Because children using a defended strategy deemphasize problems, they are unlikely to display disruptive behaviors.
Thus, children with coercive attachment patterns scored significantly higher on the measure of disruptive behavior than children with balanced or defended patterns.
My own position is that value judgments can be rationally defended or criticized.
Some philosophers claim that value judgments cannot be rationally defended or critiqued.
Though they may have defended local interests, they also frequently established an exclusionary control based on personalism, corruption, intimidation, and violence.
Leaving semantic issues largely aside, we present the normative and methodological criteria by which value-neutral and preference-free accounts of freedom have been defended.
It doesn't clinch the argument at all to say that such actions cannot be morally defended.
He defended his arguments with examples from the lives of legendary and historical heroines, with supporting citations from an array of ancient and modern writers.
As just noted, we defended a hypothesis and a mechanism underlying it.
But an older, more strait-laced reading can be defended.
In this way, for example, the plausibility of an argument could be defended by another argument in its subset.
It will be defended by some reflections on the role of law.
The primacy thesis will be defended as a matter of the primacy of distributive over aggregative measures.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.