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How To Use Defiant In A Sentence

  • One seemed to be defiant and the other seemed a bit weepy. The Sun
  • As he rode along the lanes, his nostrils filled with the heady scent of elderflowers, and the air was alive with stag beetles whose chunky black bodies whirred defiantly through the dusk.
  • The man was never as much of a sucker for a hook as Elton John was, but throughout 'The Soul Cages', Sting defiantly resists hummability as if a mere catchy pop chorus were too frivolous for such weighty content. The Soul Cages
  • brought up to be aggressive and defiant
  • Its images tumble, proliferate and cross-hatch; they are extravagant and loopy and defiantly enormous in their ambition, making everything else look petty and piddling.
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  • She looked at him with a defiant air.
  • Then he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder along with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, which co-occurs in about 40 percent of those diagnosed with ADHD.
  • Falling to the ground in a graceful crouch was a slender figure, defiantly feminine.
  • Curtis earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance in 1958's "The Defiant Ones, " playing an escaped racist convict chained to a black prisoner, portrayed by Sidney Poitier.
  • He defiantly skirted the Italian coastline aboard his luxury yacht, taunting the authorities who had steadfastly refused to allow him to set foot in his native country for more than half a century.
  • Its gun-ports were visible even at this distance, and a flag, unidentifiable, waved defiantly atop the mainmast.
  • The Rat Cutter took a few defiant puffs on his cigar.
  • Such defiantly provocative work, and the uproarious punk music which accompanied it, won him cult status.
  • ‘What a very boring man, obsessed with the first world war,’ he says, all self-mockery, behind his cluttered desk in Private Eye's defiantly unmodernised Soho townhouse.
  • But it was the last defiant act of a season that has brought equal amounts of joy and despair. The Sun
  • She defiantly speared the last sausage on her plate and began to cut it up when a black, hairy nose appeared in her lap from under the tablecloth.
  • Awash with glittering gold, adorned in yellowy brilliance, the jewellery designers cut a new path, defiantly and creatively.
  • She had tried to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes she saw Sir Gareth, standing defiantly before the bridge, his broken sword ablaze with sunlight. Chosen Of The Gods
  • It's full of the stuff that packs the dance floor: a defiant but dignified message of survival sung by a woman who knows whereof she speaks.
  • They arrived by coach with the air of a defiant underdog away team, and they maintain fierce internal discipline. Times, Sunday Times
  • Excommunication threatened the eternal life of heretics and schismatics, while the Holy Inquisition concentrated the minds of defiant Catholics by handing them over to the civil power for a spot of torture or burning.
  • The children's facial expressions range from defiant to aggressive, from stoical to shy.
  • Last and his millions of fans existed defiantly in a kitsch parallel pop universe, but the bandleader did score a few notable hits with his own compositions. Times, Sunday Times
  • Then ships bearing news might reach Alexandria by the dozen -- that is, the greybeard added with a defiant glance at the daintily clad city gentleman -- if they were allowed to pass the Pharos or go through the Poseidon basin into the Eunostus. Complete Project Gutenberg Georg Ebers Works
  • So irrepressible in youth is the thrust to become," one specialist has warned, "that it will surface somehow, if not in constructive self-expression, then in wilful vandalism or defiant apathy or even suicide as an ultimate, tragic expression of self-determination. Our Responsibility to Youth
  • All the shops fast asleep, with their eyelids closed, that is, their shutters up, all except one establishment, garishly lighted and of defiantly rakish, appearance, with the words Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, September 5, 1891
  • And as the last few miles had shown, the Defiant wasn't a great winter car - the defroster took forever, and shifting was a botheration.
  • Images of Brando in character now are emblems for the era he dominated: Stanley Kowalski with his ripped t-shirt and pent-up rage; Terry Malloy, making a defiant stand against the mob on the waterfront; Johnny the Biker in "The Wild One," sneering at all authority.
  • But brutal conditions and the taunts of the mortician's apprentice cause a defiant Oliver to run away to London.
  • Trees on the opposite bank were bursting into leaf, although the sun was defiantly not shining.
  • I knocked on his meagre chest with my fore knuckle, and fetched forth a weak, gaspy cough; but he looked at me unflinchingly, much like a defiant sparrow held in the hand. Local Color
  • When meeting a scientist who also believes in divinity, the defiantly atheist New York Times science writer Natalie Angier starts popping mental veins.
  • His lips trembled, and he felt strangely compelled to shout a defiant slogan.
  • In a moment's silence, everyone surveyed the defiant messages, clearly visible to any low-flying aircraft. RUSHING TO PARADISE
  • The ambulanceman had been on duty when he strode defiantly into the Tesco store wearing just the underwear and a pair of socks after staff refused to serve him while he was wearing his ambulance uniform. Nothing To Do With Arbroath
  • The women's defiant attitude was the greatest surprise to the authorities who expected tears, supplications and general weakness.
  • Mason cuts a battered but defiant figure.
  • Bosses hope many of the jobs will be lost through voluntary redundancies but the mood on the shop floor is defiant.
  • Bangkok - Thousands of defiant demonstrators braced for a possible police crackdown Sunday after camping overnight in one of Bangkok's main CHILDREN 'ADVENTURES WITH DORA AND DIEGO' (Friday through Thursday) The young television series "Dora the Explorer" and "Go, Diego, ... WN.com - Business News
  • Robyn put the bottle to her lips again - defiantly, desperately.
  • He remained defiant after being released yesterday. Times, Sunday Times
  • He was alternately downcast and defiant, becoming more animated in his exchanges with the judge as the hearing went on.
  • There is a defiant resistance under way all over the world, and we would do well to join it.
  • Knowl, so called in this county, but he had many other places, was of a very ancient lineage, who had refused a baronetage often, and it was said even a viscounty, being of a proud and defiant spirit, and thinking themselves higher in station and purer of blood than two-thirds of the nobility into whose ranks it was said, they had been invited to enter. Uncle Silas
  • In recent years the defiantly right-on stance of the comedy circuit had been booted out by a brand of no-holds barred humour.
  • Yet they remain proud and defiant, demanding respect, dignity, and sovereignty - very Korean traits.
  • Everton hit the woodwork twice, had two penalty appeals turned down, but in the end found themselves with an uphill battle against a determined a defiant Spurs who maintained their unbeaten away league record.
  • Though heavily saddled with cliché, Pure Mule exhibits at least some of the commendably defiant instincts of a bucking bronco.
  • Many defiant children are also unusually clever; figuring out ways to defeat your most sophisticated arguments.
  • He was conspicuous among the young men of his standing for the forwardness with which he took his side against "Tractarianism," and the vehemence of his dislike of it, and for the almost ostentatious and defiant prominence which he gave to the convictions and social habits of his school He expressed his scorn and disgust at the "donnishness," the coldness, the routine, the want of heart, which was all that he could see at Oxford out of the one small circle of his friends. Occasional Papers Selected from the Guardian, the Times, and the Saturday Review, 1846-1890
  • He was defiant, telling them they'd have to earn their money through performance.
  • He is resilient, calm and defiant. The Sun
  • Plus, their lifestyle decisions are defiantly made under the army surplus banner we cleverly call Crusty.
  • There was no single meaning in a defiant gesture against the ideology of an image, because gestures can carry a multiplicity of meanings. The Past is Before Us - feminism in action since the 1960s
  • Plus, their lifestyle decisions are defiantly made under the army surplus banner we cleverly call Crusty.
  • This attitude is defiantly hip and belligerently contemporary.
  • Power is hierarchical; the rebel challenges authority, presumes to be the defiant equal of his creator or of his king, and is convinced that his stubbornness will redeem him.
  • We set out at a cracking pace and met only charabancs overloaded with defiant voters.
  • A jagged scar blazes defiantly on his forehead, a scar like a lightning bolt.
  • The pack were seen fighting for her flesh as she remained stoic and defiant to the end. Times, Sunday Times
  • Last night his defiant stand plunged his party into bitter in-fighting. The Sun
  • They defiantly rejected any talk of a compromise.
  • Theoretically facing a death sentence, he mistook the police photography equipment for his notorious mechanical garotte, and remembers asking himself ‘whether this was the right time to shout something defiant and noble’.
  • stood defiantly with unbowed back
  • He takes to the catwalk again for a rendition of Defiant Pose done at length and full speed: Watching the Houses of Parliament reduced to a smouldering ruin made Terry and Joyce feel horny as hell. Paul McRandle: Westway Ho! Stewart Home at Performa 11
  • Defiantly magical During the flash, she also saw something that terrified her and chilled her to the bone.
  • The posture is somehow defiant, although her expression is anything but.
  • Billy continued to stand there, mute and defiant.
  • The mountains stand as defiant outposts of tradition yet have also always been the homeland of rebellion, dissidence and resistance.
  • Don't we all want to live somewhere with a strong sense of community and more than a few defiant unique selling points thrown into the bargain?
  • The eggs are firm, and cooked to perfection, the strudel crisp and the tattie scone defiantly light.
  • And she stood there at the altar-rails, erect and defiant, and there was not a tremor in the hand that held the holy-water vase, nor in the hand that held the aspergill. My New Curate
  • In a typically defiant speech last night the 47-year-old leader said that her movement had made a big leap on to the benches of regional power. Times, Sunday Times
  • o 'Day Boys became known as Orangemen, whose defiant loyalty sometimes caused concern to Camden and Pitt; while the Defenders joined the better drilled ranks of United Ireland, which therefore became a preponderatingly Catholic body. William Pitt and the Great War
  • In 1951, in response to the burgeoning civil rights movement, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, defiantly raised a Confederate flag outside the entrance to its courthouse. Anna Arceneaux: Louisiana Supreme Court Sees Problems With the Confederate Flag, but Allows It to Wave for Now
  • Now they defiantly had a bigger advantage, and a better chance of winning.
  • And despite coming under heavy fire from political opponents for alleged favouritism towards his home county, the minister is remaining defiant.
  • There were loud boos, punctuated by occasional defiant claps from isolated guests.
  • The boy cringed away but remained defiant, his anger driving the fear out of him.
  • On the town gate in the tapestry, a man stands defiantly staring after the cart.
  • Louise became less defiant in her joy then, or else the effect of it was lost in Mrs. Hilary's assumption of an entire expectedness in the event. The Story of a Play A Novel
  • The same temper that glared from the face of the man, sitting erect in his saddle, seemed to be burning in the eyes of the child who stood so defiantly before him. The Little Colonel
  • In a defiant, rambling speech in the capital, Tripoli, the army colonel who has ruled the North African nation for nearly 42 years appealed to supporters to take to the streets by the millions in order to cleanse Libya, home by home, village by village,'' of what he described as a misguided movement inspired by foreigners. Boston.com Top Stories
  • She would tenderly caress both classic love songs and defiant heartbreakers with equal vocal skill.
  • A group of prisoners stood on the roof, defiantly waving banners and throwing stones.
  • To the defiant Danyèl Waro of La Réunion, for his maloya songs; to the Kanak poetess Déwé Gorodey, who defied the colonial powers all the way to prison; to the rebellious Abdourahman Waberi. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio - Nobel Lecture
  • Instead of disappearing into the caricature of shadows of what they are supposed to be, by tagging, graffiti artists are defiantly re-naming themselves.
  • The speedboat bounced along sending a cascade of waves crashing through the calmness and bashing into the smooth green walls of buildings that rose tall and defiant from the canal's glassy depths.
  • Their delivery into the world will be a defiant affirmation of life in this remote and barren desert. Times, Sunday Times
  • Today he continued to strike the defiant, populist tone that characterized his campaign.
  • There was a certain insolent quality in her beauty, as if it flaunted itself somewhat too defiantly in the beholder's eye. Further Chronicles of Avonlea
  • These adorable, fairytale-like creations, which recall Alice In Wonderland and smack of defiant frivolity and impracticality, are the recessionista's status symbol of choice.
  • The archetypal gay wedding portrait -- a pair of middle-aged women or paunchy men looking uncomfortable in rented outfits worn at the wrong time of day -- is destined to be hung in the same gallery of dated images of social progress alongside snapshots of flappers defiantly puffing cigarettes and Kodachromes of African Americans wearing dashikis. When You're Desperate
  • The defiant, unamplified drum solo that followed was quite amazing and ended with Mr. Baker being carted off stage by security staff.
  • In these places are jagged cliffs falling almost vertical to the tide line, sea-scarred headlands defiantly forcing their way westwards, and fallen scree a remnant of aeons of erosion.
  • Even his defiant courage is an in-character refusal to repent or seek redemption.
  • The Defiant Ones (1958) - When convicts John "Joker" Jackson (Curtis) and Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) escape a chain gang manacled together, they must put aside their mutual antipathy. John Farr: Two Passing Greats: A Tribute to Arthur Penn and Tony Curtis
  • He could not be contacted yesterday but left a defiant message on his website. Times, Sunday Times
  • The dress had an embroidered bodice that was light purple with white embroidered butterflies that were defiantly doing something eldritch.
  • But many relatives of those trapped aboard the Kursk arrived with a defiant hope that their boys would be saved.
  • The terrorists sent a defiant message to the government.
  • You've no call to be flingin 'names about," he added, defiantly, wringing out his shirt-sleeve, wet from rescue of the oar. CHAPTER I
  • With a last defiant gesture, they sang a revolutionary song as they were led away to prison.
  • Once the war was over, they continued to identify with the most defiant commandants and generals.
  • a defiant attitude
  • Add in her vibrant costumes and that defiant monobrow, and she was, in short, a natural star. Times, Sunday Times
  • Dreamworks' hands-off approach is evident in the finished film, which is defiantly British in its quirky choice of subject matter and love of absurd punning.
  • Most of the rioters could never have expected the riots to bring about any specific political reforms, but instead engaged in them simply as a staging of anguished, despairing, and defiant political street-theater, the value of which inhered in the unmitigated violence through which the dialogue was communicated to a national audience. Matthew Yglesias » Endgame
  • Sylvia tossed back her dark hair in a gesture that was openly defiant.
  • She contended in a defiant whisper just above the crack in her voice.
  • If Rose hadn't been lying down on the floor, she most defiantly would have fallen on the ground a few feet away.
  • He jutted out his jaw, trying to look defiant, but I could see his little hands shaking. Dark Secrets 2: No Time to Die the Deep End of Fear
  • The pack were seen fighting for her flesh as she remained stoic and defiant to the end. Times, Sunday Times
  • He was as defiant as he was in school when he was caned because he had refused to salute visiting white military officers.
  • Curtis earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance in 1958's "The Defiant Ones, " playing an escaped racist convict chained to a black prisoner, portrayed by Sidney Poitier.
  • He took a swallow of whiskey and met the ensign's eyes defiantly, almost daring him to say another word.
  • They are calling it 'funemployment', a defiant riposte to the miseries of global economic turmoil. Times, Sunday Times
  • He jutted his chin/jaw defiantly.
  • There are the flags fluttering defiantly from cars. Times, Sunday Times
  • Contrary to hysterical rebuttals by the likes of Inayat Bunglawala and his cabal of supporters within Labour she speaks with one defiantly single and definitely unsplit tongue. On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
  • But now the club is defiantly back on its own two feet and is standing four-square to enter a new headquarters, which is hoped will signal a new era of success.
  • She refuses to learn her place, is defiant to the queen and gives herself airs of being the grand lady!
  • The business was established before I became connected with it, sir; nor is it for you to institute an inquiry of that kind," he answered, not raising his voice, but speaking with quick defiantness. Middlemarch
  • If there was only one thing that being friends with Leif taught me, then it would defiantly be that a schooled expression is the best expression.
  • It has a quality of defiant freedom, of unmercenary and anonymous endeavour. Times, Sunday Times
  • In recent years the defiantly right-on stance of the comedy circuit had been booted out by a brand of no-holds barred humour.
  • Then the barricaded rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement greet the dawn with militant anthems and defiant chants.
  • Theoretically facing a death sentence, he mistook the police photography equipment for his notorious mechanical garotte, and remembers asking himself ‘whether this was the right time to shout something defiant and noble’.
  • A defiant voice in the midst of a repressive era, she was mischaracterized as a madwoman and even a witch. The Fiery Spirit Of Carmen Mondragon
  • She added: 'His defiantly raised chin was geared towards making his position unassailable. The Sun
  • The ship arrived brandishing his archiepiscopal cross defiantly at the prow.
  • These guys have been defiantly old school for a while now, but in the face of scary current events, there is an undeniably dated feel to these simplistic samples and breakbeats.
  • In saluting his life of violence, exile and running, there is the satisfaction of heroism and human grandeur, an athletic and aesthetic pleasure, something exalted and defiant about his refusal to serve.
  • And it was when he spoke directly to his supporters, some tearful, some defiant, all deflated, that his voice choked.
  • He was not particularly magnanimous in victory, but he was certainly defiant in the face of defeat. Truman
  • Unlike the highly sensitive child, the defiant child has some physical characteristics that make a more aggressive approach possible.
  • Unlike the highly sensitive child, the defiant child has some physical characteristics that make a more aggressive approach possible.
  • In her defiant assertion, ‘it is a true thing’, Charlotte Brontë was probably thinking of two specific authorities on the subject of mesmerism and clairvoyant communication.
  • I asked defiantly, trying to get rid of the crack in my voice.
  • It's a defiantly anti-commercial album; one built more for cathartic expression than fretting over the amount of units sold.
  • We remain strong, defiant and resolved. The Sun
  • But last night the defiant couple said they are already planning to wed. The Sun
  • On the other hand, religious conservative monogenists such as de Salle could be more defiantly anti-colonialist.
  • Despite the criticisms, she remained defiant.
  • The outlaw as defiant nonconformist, as well as social outcast, parallels being an artist who makes functional objects and being an individual who takes pride in the power of invention and skill.
  • Ed Balls, his Treasury spokesman and a defiantly unapologetic veteran of the previous government, might not like all that.
  • But he was defiant yesterday. The Sun
  • The protesters blocking the entrance to the offices remained defiant this morning.
  • No one can advise you when to throw your "hat in the ring" and say defiantly at the outstart, "Gentlemen, I am here to fight! The Art of Public Speaking
  • Michael, aware of the excitement overside but unable to see because of the rail, leaped on top of the cabin and at sight of the monster barked defiantly. CHAPTER XV
  • Instead it is short and succinct and defiantly lays the blame squarely on everyone else.
  • Frankish soldiers commit a terrible mass execution of defiant Saxons at Verden.
  • He jutted his chin/jaw defiantly.
  • Frankish soldiers commit a terrible mass execution of defiant Saxons at Verden.
  • He was just as defiant, hand resting upon her shoulder and moving up towards her neck, lightly grabbing some of her flyaway hair and making to put it behind her ear.
  • Twenty-two years later, as Duchess of Lauderdale and already somewhat florid, but with a defiantly low corsage, she sat again for Lely with the Duke her husband.
  • Orlando itself, that is, is a form of escape from novelistic conventions, perhaps even a gypsylike text in that it is adventurous, marginal, playful, and defiant.
  • Similar moments of uninhibitedness dot the nine-minute ‘Do Not Be Afraid’, which ends with a blissfully defiant chorus.
  • This was pretty much the public face of Amy Winehouse that society obsessed over: the zoned out, stoned out girl with streaked mascara eyes, long stumbly bumbly legs, wild hair, an unabashed undoctored nose, and a mouth that was loud and defiant and unrepentant. Charles Shaw: Chasing Amy: Prohibition & the Infantilization Of Addiction
  • In mucky work boots and jeans he marched across the carpet of York model agency, sat down in front of the stunning blonde who ran the show and said defiantly: ‘I want you to turn me into a male model.’
  • mudsill" speech as a defiant rejoinder to Northern criticisms of slavery. Freedom Democrats - Online Community for Libertarian Democrats
  • If I am spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a guided trip to another part of the country (or Canada or Mexico), or trying to get my first pintail or black duck, I would defiantly spend the extra money to get premium shot. There are a lot of non-toxic alternatives to steel shot out there. You all know what they are.
  • In past years these marches have been defiant but bedraggled affairs; this one promises to be glitzier. Times, Sunday Times
  • As vice-captain Rahul Dravid says, beneath the happy-go-lucky exterior is a mind that is defiant and determined.
  • The defiant defenders and magical midfield maestros will always be popular with the fans but nothing sticks in the mind more than the moment you saw your striker place the ball past the opposition keeper.
  • A year ago today he was the defiant leader targeted in a high tech missile strike - the first violent act of the war.
  • His nose is still the defiant beak it was when I first met him, when we were both thirteen and bullied at a new and ghastly school.
  • After all, who else would close their album with a small, quietly defiant song about the horrors of competitive sports?
  • She is so cool and indifferent, so enclosed and private - when she's not openly defiant, that is.
  • In a defiant show of solidarity, fans are planning a peaceful march through the city to the ground prior to kick-off.
  • In her close-clinging habit, with her black braids securely pinned, a handful of lilies drooping at her waist, and the whole of her fair young figure invested with a sort of stately maidenliness, she formed a sufficient contrast to Rose, who, perched defiantly upon her wicked little steed, looked every inch a rogue. An Algonquin Maiden A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada
  • If Bruce expounds such views with a defiant gleam of vindication, it's understandable.
  • A legacy of nomadic lifestyles gives people a sense of defiant self-rule, observers say, while the nation's poverty nurtures discontent toward people in power who take bribes and kickbacks.
  • On Monday, Wall Street reopened for business in defiant tone but more prosaic realities quickly took over, dragging the Dow to its largest ever one-day points fall.
  • On the other hand, the nonofficial churches("nonrecognized cults") had to find their own resources in a cultural context defiant to religious pluralism.
  • But, in the meantime, he was dragging Greenock up from a slough of despondency and defiantly offering no apologies for snapping up the best available talent.
  • With one last defiant surge of power the jeep finally gave up the ghost.
  • Their delivery into the world will be a defiant affirmation of life in this remote and barren desert. Times, Sunday Times
  • There are the flags fluttering defiantly from cars. Times, Sunday Times
  • The business was established before I became connected with it, sir; nor is it for you to institute an inquiry of that kind," he answered,. not raising his voice, but speaking with quick defiantness. Middlemarch: a study of provincial life (1900)
  • Others ‘defiantly’ wear their indifference to social life as a badge of honor.
  • The sacked workers were in defiant mood as they entered the tribunal.
  • In the same defiant way, she decided not to let it rest when she was prescribed a drug she was convinced was inappropriate.
  • And the last mortal eyes ever saw of the Bonhomme Richard was the defiant waving of her unconquered and unstricken flag as she went down. This Country of Ours: The Story of the United States
  • Instead, evil becomes abstract and inescapable, defiant of natural law and irreducible to a single bad person or wrong action.
  • That defiant self-contempt defines the Velvet's status as the first post-modern band and the progenitor of the entire punk/new wave movement.
  • She was staring up at Thorn's corkboard collection of bonefish flies with a defiant clench in her jaw. BLACKWATER SOUND
  • That's prim as in a sea of peely-wally, defiantly untoned flesh.
  • She's defiant and she won't back down complaisantly. "Why Do Liberals Hate Ann Althouse?"
  • He was a bold and defiant little boy.
  • She was staring up at Thorn's corkboard collection of bonefish flies with a defiant clench in her jaw. BLACKWATER SOUND
  • The strikers have remained defiant throughout the last year sustained by community support and collections.
  • Instead, he pays her the compliment of investing her with a personality that is feistily defiant. The Times Literary Supplement
  • With a last defiant gesture, they sang a revolutionary song as they were led away to prison.
  • Standing defiantly like a mini-acropolis, its silhouette still evokes a sense of place as important to Glasgow as Ledoux's great neo-classical toll houses are to Paris.
  • One by one the men step forward and deliver angry, defiant messages. Times, Sunday Times
  • The player said defiantly: 'It was hilarious. The Sun
  • Five months after a church was desecrated by vandals, defiant parishioners have rebuilt their place of worship.
  • At this point I thump my fist down onto my desk and toss my hair defiantly.
  • The defiant stare, too, would have made a subtle effect, emphasised by the averted, pixellated face of the tubby, shorter guard.

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