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Serving to defend or protect; proper for defense; opposed to offensive; as, defensive armor. A moat defensive to a house. Shak.

A defender. Fabyan.

Tending to defend; defensive; as, defensory preparations.

e main ditch of a fortress, and in front of the curtain between two bastions, intended to defend the curtain; a ravelin. See Ravelin.

y on." Shak. Indirectly and directly too Thou hast contrived against the very life Of the defendant. Shak.

technical interruption of the proceedings in pleading in an action, which follows where a defendant does not answer the whole of the plaintiff's declaration, and the plaintiff omits to take judgment for the part unanswered. Wharton's Law Dict. Burrill.

ctitious lessee acting as plaintiff in the common-law action of ejectment, the fictitious defendant being usually denominated Richard Roe. Hence, a fictitious name for a party, real or fictitious, to any action or proceeding.

Hence: A garment made of very thick cloth, that can defend against storm and cold; also, the cloth itself; fearnaught.

A judicial writ of execution, by which a defendant's goods are appraised and delivered to the plaintiff, and, if no sufficient to satisfy the debt, all of his lands are delivered, to be held till the debt is paid by the rents and profits, or until the defendant's interest has expired.

To throw up a bank so as to confine or to defend; to protect by a bank of earth or stone.

The act of surrounding or defending with a bank.

rain by a judicial order or decree; to put an injunction on. This is a suit to enjoin the defendants from disturbing the plaintiffs. Kent.

To defend, as with a shield; to shield. [Archaic] Shak.

of Eudoxius, patriarch of Antioch and Constantinople in the 4th century, and a celebrated defender of the doctrines of Arius.

arning being to the effect that he shall not pay the money or deliver the property of the defendant in his hands to him, but appear and answer the suit of the plaintiff.

Capable of being defended, or of making or affording defense. [Obs.] No fort so fencible, nor walls so strong. Spenser.

One who or that which defends or protects by warding off harm; as:

anding the sheriff that he cause to be made of the goods, chattels, or real estate of the defendant, the sum claimed. Blackstone. Cowell.

That part of a bastion which reaches from the curtain to the face, and defends the curtain, the flank and face of the opposite bastion; any part of a work defending another by a fire along the outside of its parapet. See Illust. of Bastion.

To defend by lateral fortifications. [Obs.] Sir T. Herbert.