Word.ws English Dictionary

fend off

fend off verb: to defend against; to repel with force or effort.

Verb

fend off (third-person singular simple present fends off, present participle fending off, simple past and past participle fended off)

  1. To defend against; to repel with force or effort
    • They tried citronella to fend off the mosquitos, to no avail.
    • France spent large portions of the opening half in England territory and despite scoring the pick of the first-half tries - when Menager fended off Jess Breach to finish off a superb backs move - struggled to convert their chances.2024 April 27, Alastair Telfer, “England beat France to seal Grand Slam hat-trick”, in BBC Sport
  2. To prevent (a vessel) from running against anything with too much violence.

Synonyms of fend off

Forms of fend off

third-person singular presentfends off
present participlefending off
past participlefended off
pastfended off

Origin of fend off

fend + off

Questions about fend off

What does fend off mean?
Fend off means to defend against; to repel with force or effort.
What part of speech is fend off?
Fend off is a verb.
What is the past tense of fend off?
The past tense of fend off is fended off.

Words near fend off in the dictionary

  1. fencooperite
  2. fend
  3. fend and prove
  4. fend away
  5. fend for oneself
  6. fend off
  7. fended
  8. fended and proved
  9. fended and proven
  10. fended away
  11. fended for oneself

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fend off (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-fend off.wav.

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