Defensive
German, noun
Defensive is spelled D-E-F-E-N-S-I-V-E (9 letters) and appears 4.9 times per million words in written German, the 12,471st most frequent German word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Defensive is a German feminine noun meaning “defense (means, attitude or position of defense)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). In lower case, defensive is a different word: “strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “Abwehrbereitschaft, Verteidigung”.
What does Defensive mean in English?
noun
- 1
femininedefense (means, attitude or position of defense)
in der Defensive
adjective
- 1
femininestrong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
- 2
strong nominative/accusative plural
- 3
weak nominative all-gender singular
- 4
feminineneuterweak accusative feminine/neuter singular
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Abwehrbereitschaft, Verteidigung 2. Teil einer Mannschaft, der vorwiegend gegnerische Angriffe aufhalten soll
The definition in the German Wiktionary, in German.
Source: German Wiktionary, dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of Defensive
- Defensiven plural
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is Defensive in German?
Defensive appears 4.9 times per million words in written German.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).