Definition of "defy"

I once again / Defie thee to the trial of mortal fight.

1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes

"So you actually think yours is good-looking?" sneered the Baker. "Why, I could make a better-looking one out of a piece of dough.""I defy you to," the Hansom-driver replied. "A face like mine is not easily copied. Nor am I the only person of that opinion. All the ladies think that I am beautiful. And of course I go by what they think."

1900, Edith King Hall, Adventures in Toyland Chapter 6

Before coalition forces arrived, Iraq was ruled by a dictatorship that murdered its own citizens, threatened its neighbors, and defied the world.

2005, George W. Bush, Presidential Radio Address - 19 March 2005

British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.

2013 August 10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848

By tossing this nineteenth electron back and forth between its own orbit and that of its lost companion more than twenty-five thousand times a second, a mutilated stone atom is able partially to defy gravity and thus successfully to ride the emerging streams of light and energy, the sunbeams, to liberty and adventure.

1955, anonymous author, The Urantia Book, Paper 41

“To be determined,” Kane said, “is whether Griner and her towering skill and engaging personality will defy the odds and attract corporate sponsors as part of widespread public acceptance four decades after passage of the gender-equity legislation known as Title IX.”

2013, Jeré Longman, “W.N.B.A. Hopes Griner Can Change Perceptions, as Well as Game Itself”, in New York Times

For thee I have defied my constant mistress.

1603-1625, Beaumont and Fletcher

Dear perfum'd jackets, pennyless breeches; / Dutch flapdragons, healths in urine; / Drabs that keep a man too sure in: / I do defy you all. / Lend me each honest hand, for here I rise / A reclaim'd man, loathing the general vice.

c. 1605 (first performance; published 1608), Thomas Middleton, “A Trick to Catch the Old One”, in A[rthur] H[enry] Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton […] (The English Dramatists), volume II, London: John C. Nimmo […], published 1885, Act V, scene ii, page 352

And, safe intrench'd within, her foes without defies

1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […]