defence mechanism
noun
Simple meaning
A psychological strategy used unconsciously by people to cope with harmful or stressful situations.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihfehnsmehkuhnihzuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈfɛnsˈmɛkənɪzəm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
British spelling
A psychological strategy used unconsciously by people to cope with harmful or stressful situations.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (British spelling) A psychological strategy used unconsciously by people to cope with harmful or stressful situations.
Used this way, defence mechanism is a word tied to one variety of English with a faintly unfavourable edge. Most speakers understand it but seldom reach for it.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Regional
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Uncommon in everyday speech
Usage note
Mainly used in British English, so it may read as unusual elsewhere.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.