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Contest vs Defy - What's the difference?

contest | defy |

As nouns the difference between contest and defy

is that contest is (uncountable) controversy; debate while defy is (obsolete) a challenge.

As verbs the difference between contest and defy

is that contest is to contend while defy is to renounce or dissolve all bonds of affiance, faith, or obligation with; to reject, refuse, or renounce.

contest

English

Noun

  • (uncountable) Controversy; debate.
  • no contest
  • (uncountable) Struggle for superiority; combat.
  • (countable) A competition.
  • The child entered the spelling contest .

    Synonyms

    * (controversy) controversy, debate, discussion * (combat) battle, combat, fight * (competition) competition, pageant

    Derived terms

    (Terms derived from the noun "contest") * contest shape * fashion contest * no contest * pissing contest * popularity contest * wet t-shirt contest * will contest

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To contend.
  • I will contest for the open seat on the board.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • Of man, who dares in pomp with Jove contest ?
  • * Bishop Burnet
  • The difficulty of an argument adds to the pleasure of contesting with it, when there are hopes of victory.
  • To call into question; to oppose.
  • The rival contested the dictator's re-election because of claims of voting irregularities.
  • * J. D. Morell
  • Few philosophical aphorisms have been more frequently repeated, few more contested than this.
  • To strive earnestly to hold or maintain; to struggle to defend.
  • The troops contested every inch of ground.
  • (legal) To make a subject of litigation; to defend, as a suit; to dispute or resist, as a claim, by course of law; to controvert.
  • Synonyms

    * (contend) compete, contend, go in for * (oppose) call into question, oppose

    Antonyms

    * (oppose) support

    defy

    English

    Noun

    (defies)
  • (obsolete) A challenge.
  • (Dryden)

    Verb

    (en-verb)
  • To renounce or dissolve all bonds of affiance, faith, or obligation with; to reject, refuse, or renounce.
  • * 1603-1625 , (Beaumont and Fletcher)
  • For thee I have defied my constant mistress.
  • To challenge (someone) to do something difficult.
  • * 1671 , (John Milton), (Samson Agonistes)
  • I once again / Defie thee to the trial of mortal fight.
  • * 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= 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.}}
  • 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, W.N.B.A. Hopes Griner Can Change Perceptions, as Well as Game Itself
  • *:“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.”
  • Derived terms

    * death-defying

    Anagrams

    *