(verb) To ward off attacks against; to fight to protect; to guard.
"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."
"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism."
"This is Nature's own reservation, and every lover of wildness will rejoice with me that by kindly frost it is so well defended."
"May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies."
"He who defends with love will be secure; Heaven will save him, and protect him with love."