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Use defiance in a sentence

Definition of defiance:

  • (noun) intentionally contemptuous behavior or attitude
  • (noun) a hostile challenge
  • (noun) a defiant act

Sentence Examples:

He could not make terms with falsehood and sophistry, or leave them to perish naturally, but lived in ceaseless defiance of them.

She looked at him over her shoulder without stopping, and went on, swinging as she walked, as though in defiance of him.

Constancy and steadfastness she desired to see in him, but not the reckless defiance which rushes upon danger and courts martyrdom.

The Saracen lines fall back before the charge, while in bold defiance the sword of the emperor gleams above his crest.

Again she looked at their visitor, and this time it seemed to him that it was more than guardedly, that it was defiance.

Year by year the fields increased, and rosy girls stacked the hay in defiance of all Virginian customs across the Ridge.

This was Jean's room, held sacred to her own needs and uses, in defiance of the dreariness that compassed it close.

It even looked as though the second and third officers, in defiance of every sense of duty, connived at this relaxing of discipline.

He snapped his defiance back into the teeth of the grinning satyr-face popping forth, irritatingly, from the corners of his mind.

Meantime the jackal had seated itself upon its haunches, and was staring at the two men with an air of impudent defiance.

He realized how terribly in earnest these Frenchmen were who stood there in the darkness and hurled defiance at their German foes.

After a rhapsody upon the cosmic spell of the angel's singing, Poe, with a brave defiance, flings an implied challenge to him.

In scenes of anger, defiance, or resentment, while she was impetuous and terrible, she poured out the sentiment with an enchanting harmony.

They looked around them with an air of haughty pride, defiance, and nonchalance, which only a Frenchman can assume under such circumstances.

In defiance of honor and justice they were arrested and carried in custody to Gallic cities, where they took their own lives.

It is truly wonderful how he bids defiance to the fury of the unshackled elements, and how quietly he faces the gale.

In defiance of your cruel and unnatural machinations for the disposal of my honor, you shall never reproach me with their success.

Shrugging off the feeling, he plodded on, moving ever toward the distant goal in utter defiance of the terrors lurking around him.

He paused with rhetorical defiance, but as no one answered he proceeded to express the teachers and officers in terms of unmentionable quantities.

Stanton was not merely a disinclination of compliance with the request for his resignation; it was a defiance, and something more.

Gladstone's government did not compel the recalcitrant peers to abandon their attitude of defiance in regard to that much-needed piece of ameliorative legislation.

For once all the defiance, self-confidence, bravado, melted out of her, and she was just an appalled and frightened young girl.

She had spoken without hardness or any pugnacity; there was no defiance in her manner, which was perfectly simple and straightforward.

Rinaldo saw at a glance that the Moorish prince was a champion worthy of his arm, and gladly accepted the defiance.

On her placid features there was no trace either of irresolution or of defiance; there was nothing but quiet determination and settled purpose.

And all this in defiance of the known law of natural history that milkmen do not come out after five in the morning.

Instead, he is often discovered flat on his back in the grass, with one foot swinging aloft, wagging defiance at an industrious world.

In defiance of pestilence, are you actuated by some demon to haunt me, like the ghost of my offenses, and cover me with shame?

Last night I decked myself in my best bib and tucker, and, in defiance of all precedent, went down to his apartment.

Following the Chemist, after a moment of silence, the judge briefly addressed the prisoner, who stolidly maintained his attitude of ironic defiance.

He said fiercely, and he glared wrathfully at the girl, who pressed her arm more tightly round Helen, and looked her defiance.

Once encamped on shore, and the besiegers could bid defiance to the lines of cannon, whose balls passed harmlessly over their heads.

We knew when the German and Turkish artillerymen started their snarling hymn of hate that our gunners would soon be barking defiance.

In broken English he was yelling defiance at the redskins, when an arrow hit him in the leg and pierced him through.

The invitation was invariably declined with expressions of rage and defiance until a smoke bomb was neatly lobbed into the underground retreat.

Now for the first time, in defiance of their solemn assurances to the contrary, non-German territory and non-German people had been seized.

It is a matter of public scandal, and I am surprised that society has not already ostracized you for your audacious defiance of propriety.

The smoke from their pipes, rising in slow easy curves, seems to set at defiance the frightful cataclysm which rages around us.

Shrieked Katie, shaking her fist first at one culprit and then at the other, and glaring inextinguishable hatred and defiance upon both.

Love looked down and saw a large viper crawling across their path, its hideous head upraised in defiance, hissing venomously at their advance.

Nevermore shall you graze on that furze-covered hillside above me; Gone, gone are the halcyon days when my reed piped defiance to sorrow!

Can't you learn that magenta is the vilest of all the hues that the perverseness of man has invented in defiance of nature?

It was a poignantly musical sound, but full of menace and defiance, and it carried a long way on that still, resilient air.

He still maintained an attitude of dignified respect towards the monarch, while he hurled back with defiance the insolent summons of the viceroy.

He had become very pale again, but his face wore the impress of pain and irresolution rather than of sullen defiance or of manly independence.

In the questioning of hers there was a touch of defiance, but he knew its meaning too well to be daunted by it.

The railroad corporations are notorious for their brazen defiance of every law that is designed to curb their powers or restrain their rapacity.

He stood now, leaning against the footboard, his legs crossed, his chin on his breast, his whole attitude breathing sullen defiance.

The antidote for this bane is personal independence supported by personal conscience and honor in calm defiance of all prying and censorious espionage.

Sure enough, the concierge entered, made an excuse for being late, took off his vest, and cast a look of defiance at the furniture.

"Women," he said, with seeming irrelevance and in a tone of defiance, "used to be at the bottom of everything; now they're on top."

He laughed the loudest and affected the greatest amiability when he was most exasperated, and scowled defiance when he was perfectly unruffled.

The wool is still fine and silky, but there is an element of crudeness of design and a defiance of the laws governing color.

The howitzers are there, frowning defiance; and two long French bronze guns are slowly passing through Main Street in the same direction.

Two of the artillerymen who had not been injured came to his assistance, and again the gun was thundering forth its defiance.

It was hardly to be expected that President Jackson would quietly brook such defiance from a half civilized state and its agents.

When within range, he fired his pistols into the group, gave a yell of defiance, and continued his flight with redoubled speed.

With a light heart I spun down the beautiful, well-paved avenues that set at defiance the rigid, straight-edge avenues of more modern American cities.

The raw skull, bloody socket and mutilated nose now presented a horrible appearance, but by no means changed his tone of defiance.

He bawled his lines out with such defiance that, while they really did not partake of the humor intended, they were funny.

It is formed in defiance of authority, and for the purpose of seizing rights which are legally vested in the seigneur or the Crown.

A puff of wind lifts for a moment the flag hanging limp at her masthead, as if in mute defiance of the Spanish shot.

Had we been well mounted and disencumbered of instruments, we might have set them at defiance; but as it was, we were fairly caught.

The darker sides of his character showed themselves, its defiance, its superstition, its cynical craft, its passionate pride, its ungoverned wrath.

As no man can bear long the unanimous disapprobation of his fellows, no nation can long set at defiance the voice of a civilized world.

It is one thing obstinately to adhere to an opinion in defiance of its impracticability: another to retract that opinion so soon as its impracticability is demonstrated.

Gravitation is a great power, but the thousand tons of this tree's vast weight must be lifted and sustained in defiance of it.

"I shall never be only twelve years old again, and that's true," said Bessie, with a sportive defiance exceedingly like her former self.

The independence of respectability may harden into the insolence of defiance, and the sensitive cheek of modesty into the brazen face of shamelessness.

In those moments, the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, this breaching is his act of defiance.

It states, perhaps more clearly and absolutely than anything in Greek, the Northern principle of resistance to all odds, and defiance of ruin.

The wolf-hound tore across the field in a direct line for the bull, who, seeing him, raised his head and bellowed forth defiance.

The austerity of her gray nurse's uniform gave a touch of pathos to her childish, blue-eyed comeliness and her pretty attitude of defiance.

To approach the window was a matter of danger; volleys of mud immediately saluted one, accompanied by more blaspheming and shouts of defiance.

The authorities saw that it would work no cure, and only one attempt was ever made to punish those habitants who showed defiance.

When at rest their supple lounging attitudes had a certain defiance of formal military standards, as if French democracy were flouting Prussian militarism.

The Aztec warriors chanted defiance at Alvarado and his men, while sullenly awaiting the time when the Spaniards would be starved into submission.

At the eleventh hour, she did authorize them; and that, repeatedly, because at the last moment an injudicious threat stirred her to defiance.

At least a head taller than Woodbridge, Perez turned and looked down into the congested eyes of the other with cool, careless, defiance.

The guardianship of the frontier is, therefore, an act of defense, not of defiance, and is an elementary and essential obligation of imperial statesmanship.

The sorrow died out of her eyes and was replaced by a fierce defiance; and her fingers broke into a tarantella of wild sounds.

Elsie danced out upon the portico in playful defiance of her sister, and the other ladies went after her, expostulating with true feminine eagerness.

In the same race, in the same family also, we shall find the unlikeness which seems to set the bond of nature at defiance.

The padded chests of the Russian uniforms, also worn as a defense against the weather, were imitated in defiance of climate and common sense.

Queen's had the west and Warwick the east stand, and during the preliminaries hurled defiance at each other across the brown gridiron.

Nothing daunted in a good and honest cause, he relied upon his own courage and integrity, and coolly set all their threats at defiance.

Henry now felt himself strong enough to throw off the Hungarian yoke, and answered with defiance their demand for the annual tribute.

I would speak with less vehemence in reference to those poems which are generally supposed to be permeated with defiance, scorn, and misanthropy.

They will point to the fashionable attire, the gold rings, and lofty chignons of our younger sisters as direct defiance of primitive custom.

Winston lifted a flintlock musket he had brought ashore from the Defiance and tested the lock by the light of a candle lantern.

The veld glowed with an intensity of color that strove with a sort of hard defiance against the golden light of the sun.

There are more foolish people, who, in rashness or defiance, seize it by the blade, and get cut and mangled for their pains.

As his glance returned to Jake, and he felt the danger that loomed imminent behind his cold truculence, the instinct of defiance wilted.

The soldiers had become so inured to toil and danger that they seemed to have set disease, the elements, and the enemy alike at defiance.

No man was injured, but the words of defiance, and the shot fired by a madman's hand, were destined to be fearfully answered.

"And if I take the chances I'm ready to face the consequences," she said without defiance, but as one who enunciates a principle of life.

And Jack understood this, for, with a shout of defiance, he turned his weapon on the closely packed Germans around their machine guns.

Around the muddy places frogs croaked in defiance of armies, and, from distant points, came the crackling fire of skirmishers prowling in the dusk.

And all this in a country where the rigor of the climate, and sterility of the soil, seem united to set improvement at defiance.

Dick went forward, head up and chest thrown out, a look almost of defiance in his clear, blue eyes as a titter ran around the room.