defensive
de·fen·sive (dē fen′siv, di-)
adjective
- defending
- of or for defense
- designating or of the side that defends a goal, basket, etc. in a contest
- Psychol. constantly feeling under attack and hence quick to justify one's actions
Etymology: ME & OFr defensif < ML defensivus < L defensus: see defense
noun
- Obsolete something that defends
- a position of defense: chiefly in the phrase on the defensive, in a condition of resisting or being ready to resist attack or danger
defensive
modif.
Antonyms
Converse of object
- become: Take it easy, do not become defensive and reply in a considered way.
Adjective complement with noun phrase
- make: Labor originally decided to dilute the charter because it " made staff more defensive " .
Adjective modifier
- central: Jack Pearce has warned Bognor's new central defensive pairing they will need to be on top of their game against Fisher Athletic tomorrow.
Modifies a noun
- midfielder: He's a ready made defensive midfielder who has done really well in the French league in the last two years.
- frailty: On the evidence of their defensive frailties, his services are required with some urgency.
- lapse: We were pretty solid in the 1st 20 minutes and then 2 defensive lapses cost us.
- mix-up: Belper were gifted a goal in the 2nd minute when a defensive mix-up saw their striker steal in and prod the ball home.
- ditch: This road is built along the site of a Roman defensive ditch situated just north of Hadrian's Wall.
- earthwork: Most likely, Wansdyke was a defensive linear earthwork.
Modifying Another Word
- purely: Was our involvement in the development of the Quality Mark purely defensive?
- overly: Overly defensive play will merely land you front-row seats to the fiery destruction of your own base.
- essentially: The French military high command had developed an essentially defensive strategy from an essentially defensive national mind-set.
- naturally: It stood in a naturally defensive location on the shoulder of a steep slope overlooking a crossing point of the River Lune.
- primarily: In sites like Avebury the ditch is on the inside indicating the purpose was not primarily defensive.
- merely: I would not want to say that this was merely defensive or self-protective.
Used with adjective complement
- become: This resulted in downward pressure of fee levels with people becoming even more defensive about their charge out levels.
- feel: When we want to resist anything; when we feel defensive; then the most common response is to tighten up.
- sound: Without sounding too defensive, isn't it a tad hypocritical to label atheists as arrogant while not extending that to the religious folks?
- get: But people never do that, they always get defensive, and start attacking, when we were trying to debate something else.
Preposition: in
- nature: I have seen some of the advice provided, which was, perhaps inevitably, quite defensive in nature.
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