Word.ws English Dictionary

defence mechanism

defence mechanism is the alternative form of defense mechanism.

Meaning of defense mechanism

Noun

defense mechanism (plural defense mechanisms)

  1. (US) A psychological strategy used unconsciously by people to cope with harmful or stressful situations.
  2. (US, evolutionary theory) An automatic reaction of the body against foreign antibodies.

Forms of defence mechanism

pluraldefence mechanisms

Questions about defence mechanism

What is defence mechanism the alternative form of?
Defence mechanism is the alternative form of defense mechanism.

Words near defence mechanism in the dictionary

  1. defence gun
  2. defence guns
  3. defence in depth
  4. defence lawyer
  5. defence lawyers
  6. defence mechanism
  7. defence mechanisms
  8. defence-splitting
  9. defenced
  10. defenceless
  11. defencelessly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: defence mechanism (page history and authors); defense mechanism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “defence mechanism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/defence_mechanism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.