defender
Pluraldefenders
- 1A person who protects people or property from harm or attack.
Like a shield held up between danger and the people behind it.
She acted as a fierce defender of her younger siblings on the playground.
The castle's defenders held the walls through the long siege.
Similarprotector, guardian, champion, guard
Oppositeattacker, aggressor, assailant
Note
Two routes meet in this word. Middle English borrowed defendour from Anglo-Norman, itself from Old French, and at the same time built its own form from defend plus the native -er. The English suffix won the spelling, so the word ends like player rather than like its French ancestor. This broad, protective sense is the one the rest narrow down, and it often takes an adjective: a fierce defender of her siblings.
- 2A player whose primary task is to stop the opposing team from scoring.
The central defender cleared the ball away from the penalty area.
Their defenders pressed high up the field to win the ball back early.
Note
A position on the team sheet, not a description of what someone happens to be doing. In a match every player defends at times, but the defenders are the ones whose job it is. The word takes positional modifiers naturally, as in a central defender. In the plural it often names the whole back line working as a unit, as when the defenders press high up the field to win the ball.
- 3
- 4In Scots law, the party against whom a civil action is brought.
The defender lodged written answers denying every part of the pursuer's claim.
The court ordered the defenders to pay the disputed sum.
Similardefendant
Oppositepursuer
Note
Scottish civil courts name the two sides of a case in their own way. The pursuer brings the action and the defender answers it, where English and American courts speak of a plaintiff or claimant and a defendant. Here the defender is the party itself, not the lawyer for the defense. The term belongs to civil proceedings only. In a Scottish criminal trial, the person charged is called the accused.
Less common meaning
- 5A lawyer who represents defendants, especially a public defender; what is more often called a defense attorney.
The defender argued that the evidence had been gathered illegally.
There was another protection to which she was intitled by that law, namely, a defender; but she had none.
1822, Thomas Bayly Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from…Oppositeprosecutor
Note
A courtroom word seldom used on its own: defense attorney or defense counsel is the everyday phrase. When the bare noun does appear, it is often short for public defender, the government-paid lawyer for clients who cannot afford one. In Henry L. Hecht's Effective Depositions (2010) it names the lawyer defending the witness under questioning, seated at that witness's side. Without context it can be mistaken for the sporting meaning.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English defender, partly from Anglo-Norman defendour (from Old French defendëor), and partly from Middle English defenden plus the suffix -ere, equivalent to defend + -er.