Defiance

How to spell defiance

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce defiance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does defiance mean?

1. nounOpen and bold refusal to obey authority, rules, or an opposing force.

Defiance in a sentence

• The workers stayed at their posts in defiance of the eviction order.

• Her quiet defiance of the company policy eventually forced a review.

Where does defiance come from?

Language of origin: French

Defiance came into English in the 1300s from the Old French desfiance, meaning a challenge or a declaration that one was withdrawing one's loyalty. That noun grew out of the verb desfier, 'to challenge' or 'to renounce faith', which traces back to the Latin combination of dis-, meaning 'away' or 'apart', and fidus, meaning 'faithful' or 'trusting'. The literal old idea was striking: to defy someone was originally to formally renounce your faith or allegiance to them, much as a knight might cast off loyalty before doing battle. Over the centuries the sense softened from this feudal break of trust into the general modern meaning of bold, open resistance to authority. The same Latin root for faith sits inside words such as 'fidelity' and 'confide', and remembering that the middle is 'fi' (faith), not 'fy', helps explain why the noun is spelled defiance even though the verb is defy.

How the word is built

• de- (away, undoing)
• fi- (from Latin fidus: faith, trust)
• -ance (noun suffix)