Milton, Paradise Lost, xi. 84.
Adam afterward ayeines his defence,
Frette of that fruit.
Piers Plowman, B-text, Passus xviii. 193.
| Defy, | } |
| Defiance. |
This means now to dare to the uttermost hostility, and so, as a consequence which will often follow upon this, to challenge. But in earlier use ‘to defy’ is, according to its etymology, to pronounce all bonds of faith and fellowship which existed previously between the defier and the defied to be wholly dissolved, so that nothing of treaty or even of the natural faith of man to man shall henceforth hinder extremest hostility between them. But still, when we read of one potentate sending ‘defiance’ to another, the challenge to conflict did not lie necessarily in the word, however such a message might provoke and would often be the prelude to this: it meant but the releasing of himself from all which hitherto had mutually obliged; and thus it came often to mean simply to disclaim, or renounce.
No man speaking in the Spirit of God defieth Jesus [λέγει ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦν].—1 Cor. xii. 3. Tyndale.
Despise not an hungry soul, and defy not the poor in his necessity.—Ecclus. iv. 2. Coverdale.
All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.