Sentence Examples:
"I scorn and defy the suspicions of that enemy of the persecuted South, and high-handed wooer of exclusively Northern women!"
The room is heavy with vapor that clutches at the throat, for every cranny and interstice is covered with fragments of old sacking defying the passage of the night air.
On the contrary, when things fell more and more heavily upon her, she drew herself yet more erect, defying fate, buoyed up by the conviction that it would at last be forced to prove that she was right.
He had charged those around him to keep the queen back; and she, knowing how special an object of the popular hatred and fury she was, with a fortitude beyond that which defies death, remained out of sight lest she should add to his danger.
She told me one night long ago, in my own room, when she had disobeyed, defied, and annoyed me, that she would never rest until Sir Henry knew the truth, and that she would place before him proofs of the other affair.
This is incontrovertibly evident, both from past and present experience; and we may defy her most eloquent advocates to produce a single instance in which she has enlightened or reformed mankind.
Founded in superabundant massiveness, and built in prodigality of strength, the tower seems to defy the elements and to outlive tradition.
Yvonne alone of the three was out of humor, and she moved along silently, suppressing the joyous mood of her companion by answers in monosyllables and a forbidding expression which defied conciliation.
On the other hand, it sometimes stoops in a way that defies prediction; pride is vanquished or disarmed, resentment melts away like frost, and the resolution that at first seemed firm as the everlasting rock proves to be no barrier.
I have no doubt that your life and conversation are such as may defy the scrutinies of the most officious inquirer.
There can be no sense of personal fruition as long as the abyss remains unplumbed; and therefore nature is to him like a blind and blank mystery that reveals its secrets slowly and almost reluctantly, and defies investigation.
The physical as well as the human history of the world has its mythical age, lying dim and vague in the morning mists of creation, like that of the heroes and demigods in the early traditions of man, defying all our ordinary dates and measures.
Thanks to our serviceable and becoming Arctic kit and the steady approach of the Spring thaw, heralded by the preparation of spare bridges to replace the existing ones, we can defy the eccentricities of the climate.
And the encounter that took place between those warriors that defied each other's prowess and each of whom was desirous of vanquishing the other, and both of whom were conversant with celestial weapons, was terrible in the extreme.
The chancellor of course meant, that in this country overbearing violence cannot defy, or put itself in the place of the law.
The disgusting depravities of the Fourth Ward, afterwards made familiar by the reformatory efforts of Jerry McCauley, were then in full blast, defying all police authority and outraging common decency.
Then a bricklayer and his wife defied the heavens to fall, threw aside traditions and began to apply exact knowledge to brick-laying.
On the broad sidewalks women in low shoes that defied the wind, and men in high hats that the wind defied; nursemaids trim as deaconesses, and their charges the beautiful exotic children of pure milk and pure sunshine!
Sacred, inaccessible, guarded above and below, the great gleaming wall stood there through the centuries, defying the puny curiosity, the feeble efforts of man to even gaze upon it and marvel over it, except from a long distance.
They were brown, with that peculiar velvet opacity common to the pupils of nearsighted persons, and seemed to defy internal scrutiny.
Were the ancient laws of Moses to be thus defied by this presumptuous Nazarene, whose religious ideas were sadly lacking in orthodoxy?
Before its power the settled judgments of individual opinion are often abandoned or overborne, the sacred associations of childhood are relaxed, the plainest dictates of truth and honor are misinterpreted or defied.
I pictured, then, the father and mother of the home-coming student asking what the cause or pretext of this ''tyranny'' was, and I then said: ''I defy any one of you to show your father and mother the 'mock program' which has caused the trouble.
Such is the nature of this immense wilderness of the far West; which apparently defies cultivation, and the habitation of civilized life.
In this way they struggled forward, manfully braving difficulties and dangers, until they came to where the bed of the river was narrowed to a mere chasm, with perpendicular walls of rock that defied all further progress.
It would have been characteristic of Bacon to be confident that he could defy temptation: these habits were the fashion of the time, and everybody took them for granted; Buckingham never asked his good offices beyond what Bacon thought just and right, and asked them rather for the sake of expedition than to influence his judgment.
And thereafter, twice a day, at dawn and at night, as the train tore a noisy tunnel in the quiet air, like the plebeian upstart it was, he sprinkled every grave, rising sometimes from a bed of pain, at other times defying wind and rain and hail.
It is hard to realize that a force of three or four thousand desperadoes has the power to defy an entire kingdom.
The sea has everywhere forced its way as through a breach, yet the rocks about each fissure are diversely rent, and their tumultuous precipices defy the rules of geometric law.
While Charles did not actually witness the humiliation of the citizens, the seven-year-old boy would, undoubtedly, have heard and known sufficient of the cause of the festivals to be fully aware that the citizens who had dared defy his father were glad to buy back his smiles at any cost to their pride and purse.
As the clouds that bear the thunder project upon the heavens, so the old duke, reaching a degree of anger that defies description, stood out upon the brilliant background produced by the rich clothing of those courtly dames.
Or do you suppose that because you are pampered and spoiled by a foolish person at home, you can defy me?
It was not that she wanted to defy, so much as that she could bear no shackles, and that she had no respect for the belief that things should be done only because they were always done, and for no other reason but that of tradition.
The fact that one of the great panoramic views of the world lay at his feet was quite obliterated by the unhappy knowledge that an English Bowler had landed in the fork of a distant tree, defying recovery.
It is the duty of the men to defy danger, to risk their lives whenever occasion demands, and the long records of the service show uncounted cases of magnificent heroism, and none of failure in the face of duty.
I defy you to find anything more gay, more amusing, more freshly simple, than this good-natured Egyptian people, which was fond of life and felt a profound pleasure in its existence.
"There's a big tomcat," the other said, "that fetches my plants out and then sits and actually defies me."
It seems to be the nature of the modern and the western type of man to challenge fatalism, to defy a cross.
Then he told of Paul's capture upon the very night for which the flight had been planned; told how gallantly he had defied the cruelty of the robber band, and how his Eva had effected his liberation and had brought him with her to the trysting place.
With these, an army blanket thrown over my shoulders and pinned with a thorn, and my dress kilted up like a washerwoman's, I defied alike the liquid streets and the piercing wind.
He was so carried away by his thoughts that he forgot his notes and said many things he would never have dared to write; and after the last thundering outburst, he concluded with a short and burning prayer for himself and for all, to have power to defy the falsehood by which man was bound, and to live a life of sincerity.
If you starved them, they defied you to diminish their flesh; and if you stuffed them like aldermen, they took all they got, but disdained to carry a single ounce more than if you gave them whey thickened with water.
Perhaps he reflected that these two young people might, have defied him and married without his consent had they pleased to do so; but they had submitted themselves to his will, and as his favorite motto told him that "Government is maintained by reward and punishment," he may have reasoned that this was an occasion for reward.
From whatever quarter they may proceed, I scorn and defy them, and brand them as false; and, I doubt not, the appearance of Sir Christopher will force his detractors to disappear, even like so many whipped curs.
I defy you to find an overcharge in the account now rendered; and I expect you to pay it before you leave my house.
All around conspired against it, yet for two years and more it had clung to its life and lived, as if defying Fate, as if the impulse that throbbed in it from the Past laughed at conditions and would have it grow to manhood in spite of all.
Every burst of applause from the audience was an insult to him; and he felt a mad desire to oppose, to defy them all, to assert a master's right over that frenzied woman, to grasp her by the arm and drag her from the stage before their eyes!
Modern Taoism is of such a motley character as almost to defy any attempt to educe a well-ordered system from its chaos
I must succeed in finding the entrance on the following day, for now P?re Antoine might return at any time, and I knew that he would prove far less tractable here in his own bailiwick than he had been when I defied him at the Frontenac.
"And you stand there and defy me for that woman in the presence of Kate, to whom you are as good as betrothed?"
The German Government has caused the death of United States citizens, has defied us, has declared it had changed its policy and yet has gone on with the same old policy.
He must think of the starry firmament as a substantial entity which could not defy the law of gravitation, and which, therefore, must have the same manner of support as is required by the roof of a house or temple.
A man must indeed be graciously endowed if his personal appearance can defy the disadvantage of cheap modern clothing worn into shapelessness.
We know perfectly well that, with the aid of our Fleet, we shall still be in a position to defy the German invader and make use of our enormous reserves to wear out even Teutonic obstinacy.
And there would have been the complications arising from a girl being baby enough to want to dance about to places, and married enough to feel herself entitled to defy her chaperone; she couldn't have been trusted to chaperone herself.
The hardness of the cement, which fastens the lid of the stone coffin to the lower part, protects the body from damp, and the Pharaoh, lying beneath several feet of water, still defies the greed of the robber or the zeal of the archaeologist.
In time, however, the system became an intolerable abuse, since it enabled robbers and desperadoes of all kinds to defy the law.
He turned and looked back at Warden, puzzled, for it seemed to him that Warden was defying him; and he seemed to feel the atmosphere of complacence that surrounded the man.
Your brave, beautiful, exquisite soul, shining now through your glorious eyes, would defy the machinations of Satan himself and his horde.
If I threw down half a rabbit and called him, he would dash across the lawn at a gait that would defy description, while his voracity was wonderful to behold.
He had dared to defy the conventions of indiscriminate eulogy at funerals, to stand practically alone against public opinion, and to turn an opportunity of winning popular applause into an occasion for speaking out the necessary truth as he saw it.
I hope I have kept the Celtic secret, and I defy anyone to discover the other man by aid of this narrative.
He who could defy and control men was helpless before the eyes of a woman; he who had burned with indignation at the corrupt politics of his enemies, who had sacrificed his interests to principle by showing Bat Quayle the door, had gone forth and sacrificed his principles to his pleasure at the very first opportunity.
When Tom had got out the scout pioneer badge which Roy had noticed on him, it had been by way of defying time and hardship and proclaiming his faith in himself and his indomitable power of accomplishment.
And because the rents are cheaper in the miserable old rookeries that still defy public decency, the Italians especially crowd into these pestilential quarters, which are the hotbeds of disease, physical and moral filth, drunkenness, and crime.
She foresaw how the bad would misinterpret it, yet felt that she could afford to defy their incompetent construal.
Silently we defied each other in the savage and primitive way which we female human things have merely modernized, not modified, since the days of Lilith up to the days of suffragettes.
Bayard denied the charge, and defied the Spaniard to prove it by force of arms, on horse or on foot, as he preferred.
Even her limited experience of life's vicissitudes had taught her what short shrift was given to those who defied authority.
Women have quite recently defied the law, refused to pay taxes, and made use of "militant methods" in their agitation for enfranchisement.
When he came to the chorus he looked round as if defying somebody, then raised his right hand over his head and gripping his rifle, held the weapon there until the last word of the chorus trembled on his lips; then he brought it down with the last word and looked round as if to see that everybody was admiring his action.
It is possible to explain away all the marvelous things the animals do, but after you have finished, there will still remain something over and above, which quite defies all mechanistic interpretation.
A mad impulse seized her to rush up the steps to the loft, interrupt the meeting, defy them all and boast how she had schemed her lover's escape, and laugh at them and their plots, goad them into shooting her at once and finishing it all quickly.
It was a strange mixture of the ludicrous and the sorrowful; but told with such an artless simplicity and genuine traits of feeling, that I would have defied the most volatile to have felt uninterested with the speaker.
The huge masses of rock, looking like fallen buildings, which are strewn along the valley in inextricable confusion, defy calculation.
I defy you too, to take this doctrine, which by your own avowal would be absurd in individual relations, and apply it, even in speculation, to transactions between families, towns, departments, or provinces.
Other parts form keel and ribs of merchantmen, and having defied the mountain storms, they now equally resist the thunder of the waves and the murky threat of scowling hurricanes.
He made camp there that night, pitching his little tent in the trail for pure cussedness, and defying aloud a traveling world to make him move until he got good and ready.
He left nothing for Rhoda beyond his exquisite wardrobe and jewelry, a service of gold plate, and a number of unpaid bills, which Madam flatly refused to take upon herself, and defied the unhappy tradesmen to impose upon Rhoda.
Only the sky was clean; the sky and the hard, merciless sunlight which spared nothing of the uncleanness, and defied one even to think of the term dear to tourists, "picturesque."
As if horrified by her late descent into passion she gathers herself together, and defies him once again with a cold look.
I defy you, with all your ingenuity, to find one argument, one rhetorical topic, against our bill which may not be used with equal effect against your own Irish Colleges Bill.
She defied him, and taking her pail of water in one hand, and a basket of bread in the other, she walked directly past him on her errand of mercy; he followed her, placing his bayonet between her shoulders, just so that she could feel the cold steel.
Granting, for the sake of argument, that states of mind, especially of great tension, have some direct and mysterious influence as such, and through means which defy physical recognition and study, it must be remembered that they have a perfectly definite physiological sphere of influence upon vital activities.
It is, however, a matter for congratulation that the Battalion was not called upon to make its first attack under circumstances so unfavorable on positions which had defied the elaborate preparations which preceded the assault on July 1st.
The rain and the sun, the scorching winds of spring and winter's piercing blizzards have had their way with it for many years, and now it defies them all, for its paint is all gone, and it has no beauty for them to fade.
Many an eye was attracted toward him as seen by the light of the lanterns that were held over the side of the steamer to aid the workers, and more than one wondered how it came that a mere lad was to be found keeping company with these hardy men of the coast, seasoned to storms, and able to defy the rigors of the cold.
There they constructed for Major Nichols the fine dugouts and the heavy log blockhouses which were to defy the winter's end drive and the spring shelling of the Bolsheviki.
The whole interior is so full of naves of unequal length, and radiating chapels, of arches of differing forms, tastes, and styles, that it defies concise description and is unworthy of serious consideration.
The women flouted her still, and she defied them openly; the men found it wisest to be humble in their rough style, and her defiance of them was more scornful than her defiance of their mothers and sisters.
With his ring on my finger I could not defy him and swear his claim to be false the dream of a man maddened by his experiences in the Klondike.
As an episode in the annals of political sport, I should like to have had Roosevelt run for Governor a second time, defy Platt and all his imps, and be reelected.
The adverse winds which drove Pizarro's ships off course were certainly "atmospheric disturbances," and I defy anyone to prove that a Sixteenth Century Spanish galleon was built for atmospheric navigation.
While the distributors of literary fame were endeavoring to depreciate and degrade him, he either despised or defied them, wrote on as he had written before, and never turned aside to quiet them by civility, or repress them by confutation.
The storm was raging bitterly, but in their furred garments their hide moccasins and leggings, they defied the exposure.
No man less gigantic in moral stature would have dared thus to defy the petty atheistic fanaticism of the Directory.
Unwilling to admit a trace of the unusual in the beating of her heart, or in her deeper breathing, she could not entirely control either; there was something too fascinating in defying the light that she now knew glowed in the dull eyes at her side.
He was like a man defying his own dizziness in high places and tottering suddenly on the very edge of the precipice.
Affecting to laugh at the precautions, and sneer at the pusillanimous mind that had suggested them, he defied proof, defied suspicion.
We hate your crashing, clumsy chords, and utterly spit at and defy chromatic passages from one end of the instrument to the other, and back again; flats, sharps, and most appropriate "naturals," splattered all over the page.