defy
Other forms: defied; defying; defies
To defy is to openly refuse to do something. You can defy the no-costumes-in-class rule if you wear your fairy wings to school, but just don’t try to defy the laws of gravity unless you can actually fly.
If you deliberately break a rule or ignore an order, you defy, or resist, that rule. The word defy comes from the Latin word disfidare for "renounce one's faith." So if you're expected to be faithful to a certain law or rule but you refuse to be, you defy it. There are different ways to defy — defy your parents by staying out past curfew, or defy common sense by walking in with shoes on your head.
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resist or confront with resistance
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challenge
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elude, especially in a baffling way“This behavior defies explanation”antonyms:lend oneselfbe applicable to; as to an analysistypes:beggarbe beyond the resources of
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Vocabulary lists containing defy
Shipwrecked and blinded from a torpedo attack, Phillip must conquer his prejudices when his only companion is an elderly West Indian man named Timothy.
An ordinary Pakistani girl is shot by the Taliban while fighting for her right to an education. Co-written with Patricia McCormick, in this memoir, Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, tells her story.
Arnold Spirit, Jr., a young cartoonist who lives on the Spokane Indian reservation, decides to transfer to a school in which he will be the only American Indian student.