defier

See also: défier

English

Etymology

defy +‎ -er

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈfaɪ(j)ə(ɹ)/

Noun

defier (plural defiers)

1. agent noun of defy; one who dares and defies
   • c. 1859, Thomas de Quincey, Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow:

     She droops not; and her eyes rising so high might be hidden by distance; but, being what they are, they cannot be hidden; through the treble veil of crape which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground. She is the defier of God. She is also the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides.