Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Defensive attitude   /dɪfˈɛnsɪv ˈætətˌud/   Listen
Defensive attitude

noun
1.
An attitude of defensiveness (especially in the phrase 'on the defensive').  Synonym: defensive.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Defensive attitude" Quotes from Famous Books



... officers were drawn; but instead of advancing upon the formidable being, who stood as if paralysed at this unexpected rencontre, the two seniors contented themselves with assuming a defensive attitude,—retiring slowly and gradually towards the other ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... cock. I found him highly amusing. We entertained one another for quite a long time with cross questions and crooked answers; I affecting eager curiosity, he replying with a defensive attitude of universal ignorance. It ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... And no wonder, when we consider that the evil passions, endowed as they seem to be with a portentous excess of vigor by the very circumstance of being evil, (as the demoniacs were the strongest of men,) are exasperated the more by a certain degree of awe impressed on them by the defensive attitude of their objects. When strength so great might thus be irritated to greater, and when there were no "powers of the world to come," to invade the dreadful cavern of iniquity in the mind, and there combat and subdue it, there ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... least an armistice had been tacitly declared. But, owing to Dorothy's knowledge of her father's intention that she should marry Lord Stanley, and because of Sir George's feeling that Dorothy had determined to do nothing of the sort, the belligerent powers maintained a defensive attitude which rendered an absolute reconciliation impossible. They were ready for war ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... all central Italy without opposition beneath the eyes of a Roman army of equal numbers, and had provisioned themselves sufficiently for the winter by an organized method of foraging on the greatest scale. Publius Scipio, when he commanded on the Po, had not adopted this view of a defensive attitude, and the attempt of his successor to imitate him at Casilinum had failed in such a way as to afford a copious fund of ridicule to the scoffers of the city. It was wonderful that the Italian communities had not wavered, when Hannibal so palpably showed them the superiority of the Phoenicians and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen


More quotes...



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com