self-defense

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun

The means of defending oneself from physical attack.
The right to protect oneself against violence by using reasonable force, which can be used as justification in several charges including murder, assault, and battery.

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-self-defense.wav

self-defense self-defenses self defense self-defence self defence

From self- + defense. First used by Hobbes in the 1650s.

stand-your-ground law castle doctrine

self-defensive

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.

Back to search All on S Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary