defendant.
Serving, or suitable, for defense; defensive, defending.
Meaning & usage
Serving, or suitable, for defense; defensive, defending.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English defendaunt (“defending; defending in a suit”), borrowed from Old French defendant, present participle of defendre, from Latin dēfendere.
In civil proceedings, the party responding to the complaint; one who is sued and called upon to make satisfaction for a wrong complained of by another.
In criminal proceedings, the accused.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English defendaunt (“defendant in a suit; defender”), borrowed from Old French defendant, nominalisation of defendant; see above.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.