the speech act of answering an attack on your assertions; "his refutation of the charges was short and persuasive"; "in defense he said the other man started it"
the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required; "new blood vessels bud out from the already dilated vascular bed to make up the nutritional deficit"
an excess of liabilities over assets (usually over a certain period); "last year there was a serious budgetary deficit"
(sports) the score by which a team or individual is losing
a deficiency or failure in neurological or mental functioning; "the people concerned have a deficit in verbal memory"; "they have serious linguistic deficits"
a chess move constituting an inescapable and indefensible attack on the opponent's king
complete victory
place an opponent's king under an attack from which it cannot escape and thus ending the game; "Kasparov checkmated his opponent after only a few moves"
not complete or total; not completed; "an incomplete account of his life"; "political consequences of incomplete military success"; "an incomplete forward pass"
not yet finished; "his thesis is still incomplete"; "an uncompleted play"
(often followed by `for') in exchange or in reciprocation; "gave up our seats on the plane and in return received several hundred dollars and seats on the next plane out"; "we get many benefits in return for our taxes"
doing something in opposition to another way of doing it that you don't like; "his style of painting was a reaction against cubism"
a bodily process occurring due to the effect of some foregoing stimulus or agent; "a bad reaction to the medicine"; "his responses have slowed with age"
an idea evoked by some experience; "his reaction to the news was to start planning what to do"
extreme conservatism in political or social matters; "the forces of reaction carried the election"
a response that reveals a person's feelings or attitude; "he was pleased by the audience's reaction to his performance"; "John feared his mother's reaction when she saw the broken lamp"
(mechanics) the equal and opposite force that is produced when any force is applied to a body; "every action has an equal and opposite reaction"