Word.ws English Dictionary

defencive

defencive is the obsolete form of defensive.

Meaning of defensive

Adjective

defensive (comparative more defensive, superlative most defensive)

  1. Intended for defence; protective.
    • a defensive perimeter
  2. Intended to deter attack.
    • a defensive missile system
  3. Performed so as to minimise risk.
    • defensive driving
  4. Displaying an inordinate sensitivity to criticism or intrusion; oversensitive; thin-skinned.
  5. Of a bowling or fielding tactic designed to prevent the other side from scoring runs; of a batting tactic designed to prevent being out.
  6. Pertaining to defense, as opposed to attack.
    • The victim held up his hand to repel the attacker and received a defensive knife wound.

See all 8 meanings of defensive

Forms of defencive

comparativemore defencive
superlativemost defencive

Questions about defencive

What is defencive the obsolete form of?
Defencive is the obsolete form of defensive.

Words near defencive in the dictionary

  1. defencemen
  2. defences
  3. defences in depth
  4. defencible
  5. defencing
  6. defencive
  7. defencively
  8. defend
  9. defendability
  10. defendable
  11. defendably

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: defencive (page history and authors); defensive (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.

Last updated:

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