DEFENDANT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does defendant mean? 

• DEFENDANT (noun)
  The noun DEFENDANT has 1 sense:

1. a person or institution against whom an action is brought in a court of law; the person being sued or accused

  Familiarity information: DEFENDANT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEFENDANT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person or institution against whom an action is brought in a court of law; the person being sued or accused

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

defendant; suspect

Hypernyms ("defendant" is a kind of...):

litigant; litigator ((law) a party to a lawsuit; someone involved in litigation)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "defendant"):

accused (a defendant in a criminal proceeding)

co-defendant; codefendant (a defendant who has been joined together with one or more other defendants in a single action)

Antonym:

plaintiff (a person who brings an action in a court of law)

Derivation:

defend (be the defense counsel for someone in a trial)

 Context examples 

I have already some acquaintance with the law—as a defendant on civil process—and I shall immediately apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most eminent and remarkable of our English jurists.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He said, it was common, when two Yahoos discovered such a stone in a field, and were contending which of them should be the proprietor, a third would take the advantage, and carry it away from them both; which my master would needs contend to have some kind of resemblance with our suits at law; wherein I thought it for our credit not to undeceive him; since the decision he mentioned was much more equitable than many decrees among us; because the plaintiff and defendant there lost nothing beside the stone they contended for: whereas our courts of equity would never have dismissed the cause, while either of them had any thing left.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty's High Court of King's Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP V. MICAWBER, and the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff having legal jurisdiction in this bailiwick.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)