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.
See Examples For:
I got in there the idea of a strain with the Lakers, but I wanted to make sure to not defile that relationship based upon certain things that I wasn’t going to dig into.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 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
There was only one route out of the trap they were in, and that was a narrow defile ahead, where a dry riverbed emerged from a fold in the cliffs.
From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman
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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
There is a fine line between reflecting the concerns of voters and performing a crude and offensive imitation that mocks and defiles their deepest beliefs.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 14, 2015
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
In his resignation letter, he said the CCC had been "defiled", accusing the ruling Zanu-PF party of being behind the move - allegations it denied.
From BBC ● Jan. 25, 2024
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
During Roof's trial the prosecution made sure to remind the jury that he had defiled a famous church.
From Salon ● Jul. 16, 2023
They prayed: “O city of Athena, help us, so that the laws of justice shall not be defiled and through all lands the helpless and oppressed shall be delivered.”
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
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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
"I don't want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was OK. I don't want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future," he told CBS.
From Reuters ● Jan. 31, 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
"Without being able to arrest people, when we just fine them, they are probably making more money of the production of the things that are defiling the environment," the actor said in his welcome speech.
From Fox News ● Jun. 1, 2021
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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