SELF-DEFENCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does self-defence mean? 

• SELF-DEFENCE (noun)
  The noun SELF-DEFENCE has 1 sense:

1. the act of defending yourself

  Familiarity information: SELF-DEFENCE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SELF-DEFENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of defending yourself

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

self-defence; self-defense; self-protection

Hypernyms ("self-defence" is a kind of...):

protection (the activity of protecting someone or something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "self-defence"):

martial art (any of several Oriental arts of weaponless self-defense; usually practiced as a sport)

 Context examples 

And it may lessen his guilt if I say that it was done in self-defence, and that John Straker was a man who was entirely unworthy of your confidence.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Self-defence is one thing.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The more I reflected the more convinced I grew that I was dealing with a case of cerebral disease; and though I dismissed my servants to bed, I loaded an old revolver, that I might be found in some posture of self-defence.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Simpson beat out the trainer’s brains with his heavy stick without receiving any injury from the small knife which Straker used in self-defence, and then the thief either led the horse on to some secret hiding-place, or else it may have bolted during the struggle, and be now wandering out on the moors.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Exactly,” said I. “A plausible lawyer could make it out as an act of self-defence. There may be a hundred crimes in the background, but it is only on this one that they can be tried.”

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)