Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words (original) (raw)

self-defense

noun

1. the act of defending one's person when physically attacked, as by countering blows or overcoming an assailant:
   the art of self-defense.
2. a claim or plea that the use of force or injuring or killing another was necessary in defending one's own person from physical attack:
   He shot the man who was trying to stab him and pleaded self-defense at the murder trial.
3. an act or instance of defending or protecting one's own interests, property, ideas, etc., as by argument or strategy.

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Example Sentences

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In 2008, the court ruled for the first time that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to self-defense, but its constitutional rulings since then have been modest in their impact.

Kemp contended in a court filing that he fired in self-defense after one of the men shot at him.

Having been recast as victims, any violence they commit now can be narrated as "self-defense" against the imaginary Democrats coming for their free speech rights.

But he insisted she had come at him with a knife and that he stabbed her in self-defense.

When police arrested Anthony, the report says, he began "crying hysterically" and saying it was self-defense.