defile
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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Happy anniversary from a California native who fell in love with the coast at first sight, and shame on those who would defile it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
A soldier who requested anonymity explained to AFP that since then the body had been guarded around the clock "so that rival groups do not defile him."
From Barron's ● Mar. 3, 2026
Some Parisians backed the move, but others - including heritage campaigners - said it was a bad idea and would "defile" the French capital's iconic monument.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2024
“We can’t just take, defile and desecrate someone’s body without consent,” Numa says.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2024
As it bent sharply round the tower, it entered a narrow defile and passed not far below the hollow where he stood.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
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As mixed as I am on the film itself, I appreciate that the Academy is embracing not just a horror movie, but a gleeful Grand Guignol that defiles the Walk of Fame twice.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 24, 2025
"It is time to realize that fundamentalism defiles and corrupts every creed," he said.
From Reuters ● Sep. 14, 2022
In the name of personalization, she says, “it defiles, ignores, overrides and displaces everything about you and me that is personal.”
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 11, 2019
Even as he builds his delegate count, he gains strength from the very groups he defiles.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 10, 2016
As the day wore on, Melyngar led them swiftly through rocky defiles to high ridges.
From "The Book of Three" by Lloyd Alexander
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The writer Octavio Paz, the Mexican Nobel laureate, denounced Malinche as a kind of malevolent Eve whose submission to Cortés forever defiled Mexico’s mixed identity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 25, 2026
Close friend Jo Peraldi finds it hard to believe that a day of high emotion surrounding the funeral of Orsoni's mother could have been defiled in such a way.
From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2026
The Seleucids captured the holy Temple of Jerusalem and defiled it by erecting an altar to the Greek god Zeus inside.
From National Geographic ● Dec. 7, 2023
And I witnessed wave after wave of students taking skyward photos of their feet pressed against the Washington Monument, the venerable memorial defiled by dirty shoes and reduced to an Instagram prop.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 17, 2022
Besides, I've defiled enough future historical sites for now.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
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Let’s start with the users defiling the site with parodies of Musk and prominent corporations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 16, 2022
The country's blasphemy law prohibits disturbing a religious assembly, trespassing on burial grounds, insulting religious beliefs or intentionally destroying or defiling a place or an object of worship.
From BBC ● Apr. 18, 2022
"This is a defiling a classic," said another.
From Reuters ● Feb. 13, 2022
Others see the mining as defiling the land on the reserve by polluting the waters, stripping bare the land, as well as upending centuries-old cultural traditions.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 17, 2022
We are all our beautiful bodies and so must never be prostrate before barbarians, must never submit our original self, our one of one, to defiling and plunder.
From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Vocabulary lists containing defile
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
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Grade 9, List 3
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The House of the Scorpion
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