Word.ws English Dictionary

fends

fends is the third-person singular simple present indicative of fend.

Meaning of fend

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To take care of oneself; to take responsibility for one's own well-being.
    • Mr. Howley. They are telling him how much they will increase the reimbursement for the total labor cost. The contractor is left to fend as he can.
    • Chairman Murphy. Obviously, he can’t fend for any more than the money he has coming in.1990, Messrs Howley and Murphy, quoted in U.S. House Subcommittee on Labor Standards, Oversight hearing on the Federal Service Contract Act, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 40
  2. (rare, except as "fend for oneself") To defend, to take care of (typically construed with for); to block or push away (typically construed with off).
    • With fern beneath to fend the bitter cold.1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

See all 4 meanings of fend

Phrases with fends

Questions about fends

What is fends the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Fends is the third-person singular simple present indicative of fend.

Words near fends in the dictionary

  1. fending off
  2. Fendley
  3. Fendleys
  4. fendosal
  5. Fendrich
  6. fends
  7. fends and proves
  8. fends away
  9. fends for oneself
  10. fends off
  11. fendy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fends (page history and authors); fend (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: “fends.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fends. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.