fenceth

Verb

fence (third-person singular simple present fences, present participle fencing, simple past and past participle fenced)

1. (transitive) To enclose, contain or separate by building fence.
   • […] pray you, if you know,
     Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
     A sheep-cote fenc’d about with olive trees?1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act IV, scene 3
2. (transitive) To defend or guard.
   • Cosin, our hands I hope shall fence our heads,
     And strike off his that makes you threaten vs.1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, London: William Jones
3. (transitive) To engage in the selling or buying of stolen goods.
   • The Bat—they called him the Bat.[…]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01

   Synonyms:

   pawn

4. (ambitransitive) To engage in the sport of fencing (against).
   • Challenges are flying right and left between these bully-swordsmen, these spadassinicides, and poor devils of the robe who have never learnt to fence with anything but a quill.1921, Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche
5. (intransitive) To jump over a fence.
6. (intransitive) To conceal the truth by giving equivocal answers; to hedge; to be evasive.
   • A lady, sir, as you will find, / Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind, / Means what she says and scorns to fence / And palter with feigned innocence.1981, A. D. Hope, “His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell”, in A Book of Answers

See all 16 meanings of fence