Defend
Respond
Respond verb - To speak or write in reaction to a question or to another reaction.
Usage example: the students energetically participated in the discussion, responding to the teacher's questions and comments with alacrity and enthusiasm
Defend and respond are semantically related. Sometimes you can use "Defend" instead a verb "Respond".
Common collocations
Both words in one sentence
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In Lonesome Road, if you tell Ulysses that you killed Caesar, he'll respond that by the logic of the Legion, he wasn't strong enough to be a leader if he couldn't even defend himself.
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This way, Liechtenauer's art of swordsmanship begins and ends all techniques in guards; this ensures that all practitioners are ready to defend themselves at all times unless they are already attacking an adversary, in which case they are forcing said adversary to respond.
- Legion reveals that despite desperately wanting to make peace with their Creators, they cannot understand why whenever they try to stop fighting, the quarians respond by immediately opening fire, forcing the geth to once again defend themselves.
Source: Van Helsing Hate Crimes
Cite this Source
Respond and Defend. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 22, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/defend/respond
Defend & Respond. N.p., 2016. Web. 22 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/defend/respond>.
Respond or Defend. 2016. Accessed July 22, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/defend/respond.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "defend" and "respond" have occurred on timeline