Synonyms:
defensive
Meaning: intended or appropriate for defending against or deterring aggression or attack; "defensive weapons"; "a defensive stance"
Synonyms:
defensive, justificative, justificatory
Meaning: attempting to justify or defend in speech or writing
noun
meaning of the word
Synonyms:
defensive, defensive_attitude
Meaning: an attitude of defensiveness (especially in the phrase `on the defensive')
Usage examples
There could be only one end to this unequal contest if Brion stayed on the defensive. The man with the knife had to win.
All warfare that is not defensive is criminal; and he who draws his sword to oppress, or merely to aggrandize, is a murderer and a robber.
So unless further evidence actually is developed, or the Heaven-Born orders to the contrary, the Military will hold to a defensive policy.
For a moment Lanyard was able to accomplish no more than to smother resistance in a rib-crushing embrace; no sooner did he relax it than all attempts to shift his hold were anticipated and met half way, forcing him back upon the defensive.
These are all deliberate and justifiable suggestions, and they all aim to sacrifice minor differences in order to link like to like in greater matters, and so secure, if not physical predominance in the world, at least an effective defensive strength for their racial, moral, customary, or linguistic differences against the aggressions of other possible coalescences.
On the 13th of October, 1579, Drake arrived in latitude 8 degrees north, at a group of islands of which the inhabitants had their ears much lengthened by the weight of the ornaments suspended to them; their nails were allowed to grow, and appeared to serve as defensive weapons, while their teeth, "black as ship's pitch," contracted this colour from the use of the betel-nut.
The event, however, was seized upon to inflame the mind of the Northern people, and the disguise which had been worn in the communications with the Confederate Commissioners was now thrown off, and it was cunningly attempted to show that the South, which had been pleading for peace and still stood on the defensive, had by this bombardment inaugurated a war against the United States.
Waller exclaimed loudly against that general, for allowing Wilmot to pass him, and proceed without any interruption to the succor of the distressed infantry at the Devizes. But Essex, finding that his army fell continually to decay after the siege of Reading, was resolved to remain upon the defensive; and the weakness of the king, and his want of all military stores, had also restrained the activity of the royal army.
He issued his orders to the four magazines and manufactures of offensive and defensive arms, Margus, Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his troops with an extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords, and spears; the unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the instruments of their own destruction; and the Barbarians removed the only defect which had sometimes disappointed the efforts of their courage.