Verge vs Defy - What's the difference?
verge | defy |
A rod or staff of office, e.g. of a verger.
# The stick or wand with which persons were formerly admitted tenants, by holding it in the hand and swearing fealty to the lord. Such tenants were called tenants by the verge .
An edge or border.
*(John Milton) (1608-1674)
*:Even though we go to the extreme verge of possibility to invent a supposition favourable to it, the theoryimplies an absurdity.
*(Matthew Arnold) (1822-1888)
*:But on the horizon's verge descried, / Hangs, touched with light, one snowy sail.
*
*:It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.
# The grassy area between the sidewalk and the street; a tree lawn.
#(lb) An extreme limit beyond which something specific will happen.
#:
(lb) The phallus.
#(lb) The external male organ of certain mollusks, worms, etc.
An old measure of land: a virgate or yardland.
A circumference; a circle; a ring.
*(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
*:The inclusive verge / Of golden metal that must round my brow.
(lb) The shaft of a column, or a small ornamental shaft.
:
(lb) The edge of the tiling projecting over the gable of a roof.
:
(lb) The spindle of a watch balance, especially one with pallets, as in the old vertical escapement.
To be or come very close; to border; to approach.
(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 verbs the difference between verge and defy
is that verge is while defy is to renounce or dissolve all bonds of affiance, faith, or obligation with; to reject, refuse, or renounce.As an adjective verge
is ribbed, veined.As a noun defy is
(obsolete) a challenge.verge
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) , of unknown origin. Earliest attested sense in English is now-obsolete meaning "male member, penis" (c.1400). Modern sense is from the notion of 'within the verge' (1509, also as (etyl) dedeinz la verge ), i.e. "subject to the Lord High Steward's authority" (as symbolized by the rod of office), originally a 12-mile radius round the royal court, which sense shifted to "the outermost edge of an expanse or area."Noun
(en noun)Synonyms
* (strip of land between street and sidewalk) see list at (m)Etymology 2
From (etyl) (compare versus); strongly influenced by the above noun.Verb
(verg)- Eating blowfish verges on insanity.
References
* ----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
