Breach vs Defy - What's the difference?
breach | defy |
A gap or opening made by breaking or battering, as in a wall, fortification or levee; the space between the parts of a solid body rent by violence; a break; a rupture; a fissure.
* 1599 , , Henry V , act 3, scene 1:
A breaking up of amicable relations, a falling-out.
* Shakespeare
A breaking of waters, as over a vessel or a coastal defence; the waters themselves; surge; surf.
* Bible, 2 Sam. v. 20
* 1719 , :
A breaking out upon; an assault.
* Bible, 1 Chron. xiii. 11
(archaic) A bruise; a wound.
* Bible, Leviticus xxiv. 20
(archaic) A hernia; a rupture.
(legal) A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment; as, a breach of contract; a breach of promise.
(figurative) A difference in opinions, social class etc.
* 2013 September 28, , "
The act of breaking, in a figurative sense.
* 1748 , David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding , Section 3, § 12:
To make a breach in.
To violate or break.
* 2000 , Mobile Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast, Inc. v. United States, Justice Stevens.
(transitive, nautical, of the sea) To break into a ship or into a coastal defence.
(of a whale) To leap clear out of the water.
(obsolete) A challenge.
To renounce or dissolve all bonds of affiance, faith, or obligation with; to reject, refuse, or renounce.
* 1603-1625 , (Beaumont and Fletcher)
To challenge (someone) to do something difficult.
* 1671 , (John Milton), (Samson Agonistes)
* 1900 , Edith King Hall, Adventures in Toyland Chapter 6
*:"So you actually think yours is good-looking?" sneered the Baker. "Why, I could make a better-looking one out of a piece of dough."
*:"I defy you to," the Hansom-driver replied. "A face like mine is not easily copied. Nor am I the only person of that opinion. All the ladies think that I am beautiful. And of course I go by what they think."
To refuse to obey.
* 2005 , , Presidential Radio Address - 19 March 2005
*:Before coalition forces arrived, Iraq was ruled by a dictatorship that murdered its own citizens, threatened its neighbors, and defied the world.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington
, title= To not conform to or follow a pattern or certain set of rules.
* 1955 , Anonymous, The Urantia Book Paper 41
*:By tossing this nineteenth electron back and forth between its own orbit and that of its lost companion more than twenty-five thousand times a second, a mutilated stone atom is able partially to defy gravity and thus successfully to ride the emerging streams of light and energy, the sunbeams, to liberty and adventure.
* 2013 , Jeré Longman in the New York Times,
*:“To be determined,” Kane said, “is whether Griner and her towering skill and engaging personality will defy the odds and attract corporate sponsors as part of widespread public acceptance four decades after passage of the gender-equity legislation known as Title IX.”
As nouns the difference between breach and defy
is that breach is a gap or opening made by breaking or battering, as in a wall, fortification or levee; the space between the parts of a solid body rent by violence; a break; a rupture; a fissure while defy is (obsolete) a challenge.As verbs the difference between breach and defy
is that breach is to make a breach in while defy is to renounce or dissolve all bonds of affiance, faith, or obligation with; to reject, refuse, or renounce.breach
English
(wikipedia breach)Noun
(es)- "Once more unto the breach , dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead."
- There's fallen between him and my lord / An unkind breach .
- A clear breach''' is when the waves roll over the vessel without breaking. A clean '''breach is when everything on deck is swept away.
- The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me, as the breach of waters.
- I cast my eye to the stranded vessel, when, the breach and froth of the sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay so far of; and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore.
- The Lord had made a breach upon Uzza.
- breach for breach, eye for eye
London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):
- For London to have its own exclusive immigration policy would exacerbate the sense that immigration benefits only certain groups and disadvantages the rest. It would entrench the gap between London and the rest of the nation. And it would widen the breach between the public and the elite that has helped fuel anti-immigrant hostility.
- But were the poet to make a total difression from his subject, and introduce a new actor, nowise connected with the personages, the imagination, feeling a breach in transition, would enter coldly into the new scene;
Synonyms
* break * rift * rupture * gapDerived terms
* breach of contract * breach of promise * breach of the peace * *Verb
(es)- They breached the outer wall, but not the main one.
- "I therefore agree with the Court that the Government did breach its contract with petitioners in failing to approve, within 30 days of its receipt, the plan of exploration petitioners submitted."
defy
English
Noun
(defies)- (Dryden)
Verb
(en-verb)- For thee I have defied my constant mistress.
- I once again / Defie thee to the trial of mortal fight.
Keeping the mighty honest, passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}
W.N.B.A. Hopes Griner Can Change Perceptions, as Well as Game Itself