defence

Pluraldefences

1. 1
   fighting off attacknouncountable or uncountable

   The act of keeping someone or something safe from attack, danger or injury.

   The townspeople took up arms in defence of their homes.

   Coastal forts were built for the defence of the harbour against raids from the sea.

   UsageOften in the phrase in defence of someone or something, with what is protected after it.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Government policy, organisations and facilities concerned with a country's armed forces.

   Defence and foreign policy dominated the final week of the election campaign.

   The government has promised to raise defence spending over the next five years.

   UsageOften used before another noun: defence spending, defence policy, the defence secretary.

3. 3
   thing that protectsnouncountable or uncountable

   Anything that is used to resist an attack or to keep it from succeeding.

   The town's medieval defences still stand on the hill above the river.

   Vaccination remains the first line of defence against the disease.

   UsageUsually a defence against something, and often in the first line of defence.

   Note

   In the plural it often names the works themselves: a walled town's defences are its walls, gates and ditches, which can be breached, strengthened or left to crumble. The idiom line of defence stretches the idea to anything that holds off a threat, from a vaccine to a firewall, and first or last line of defence ranks those barriers by the order in which an attack meets them.

4. 4
   in sportnouncountable or uncountable

   The players in a team whose main job is to stop the other side from scoring, as distinct from its attackers.

   City's defence looked shaky whenever the visitors ran at them down the wings.

   The manager has signed two new centre-backs to strengthen a leaky defence.

   UsageThe group can take a plural verb (the defence were caught out); one player in it is a defender.

5. 5
   justificationnouncountable or uncountable

   An argument offered to support something or to show that it is justified.

   In the manager's defence, his team was missing four key players through injury.

   She wrote a passionate defence of public libraries for the local paper.

   UsageA defence of something argues for it as a whole; in someone's defence, usually opening a sentence, offers one point for them.

6. 6
   accused's lawyersnounlaw

   One side in a trial: the legal team acting for the accused, sometimes counted together with the accused person.

   The defence called three witnesses before the judge adjourned for lunch.

   Counsel for the defence told the jury that the police had arrested the wrong man.

   UsageUsually with the: the defence calls witnesses, and barristers act for the defence.

   Oppositeprosecution

   Note

   Here the word names people rather than a line of argument: the side that faces the prosecution in a criminal trial. When the phrase could mean the case presented in court, the verb decides: an argument can succeed or collapse, but only people call witnesses, object or cross-examine.

7. 7
   accused's casenouncountablelaw

   The case put to a court in answer to a criminal charge or a civil claim, made by the accused or the person being sued, or by their lawyers.

   Her defence was that she had been in Leeds on the night of the burglary, and two witnesses backed her up.

   The company has until the end of the month to file its defence to the claim for unpaid fees.

   UsageLawyers often say a defence to a charge or claim, where everyday speech would use against.

   Similarcase

   Note

   Some defences have names of their own, such as self-defence, duress and insanity, and an alibi defence is the simplest of all: the accused was somewhere else.

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