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.