Object

• gravity: Cause a regular pencil to defy gravity by clinging to your fingers!

Modifying Another Word

• deliberately: He wasn't satisfied, v10 tells us, with a campaign of malicious gossip about John but deliberately defied him.

• successfully: It popularized the idea that unjust laws can be successfully defied.

Object

• classification: Like all great works of literature, the Lord of the Rings defies classification.

• comprehension: Part 1 Geological evidence points to an cataclysmic event that almost defies comprehension.

Used with why or when

• what: The recovery from the 1991 recession, for instance, seemed to defy what was universally taught in economics courses around the world.

Adjective complement

• easy: The character's motivations are complex and defy easy categorizing.

Modifying Another Word

• openly: They intend to openly defy the law in order to get arrested.

• seemingly: No effect compares to having an ordinary, everyday object seemingly defy gravity.

Present participle complement

• age: There are many hundreds of qigong postures designed to help defy aging.

• categorize: Other things we might make or commission ourselves that really defy categorizing... .