How to Use defang in a Sentence

defang

verb
  • The Nuggets of three years ago would have defanged the Wolves.
    — Troy Renck, Denver Post, 2 May 2026
  • This is very classy and straightforward and rather dull and defanged.
    — Will Leitch, Vulture, 3 Mar. 2025
  • But Bass so far appears to have been able to defang the issue.
    — Los Angeles Times, 26 Aug. 2022
  • That kind of disregard for the law defangs it in a big way, Marsco said.
    — The Washington Post, The Mercury News, 13 June 2019
  • The ambitious temptress is remade and in the process defanged.
    — Lyz Lenz, Rolling Stone, 16 July 2024
  • Going there, briefly and on purpose, often defangs it.
    — Angela Haupt, Time, 8 May 2026
  • But the case also defanged much of the research on video-game violence.
    — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 5 Aug. 2019
  • The premier place for online debate, a forum where new ideas could spring up has been defanged.
    — Callum Booth, Forbes, 15 Sep. 2024
  • Thus far, though, Pitchfork hardly seems defanged.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 17 Oct. 2025
  • Others also want to use the spending fight to defang Musk and his cost-cutting team.
    — Mike Lillis, The Hill, 12 Feb. 2025
  • Peace in the near term is seen as a pipedream; the need to stop terrorism and defang enemies is paramount.
    — Zack Beauchamp, Vox, 20 Nov. 2018
  • Within a few years, the Kremlin had dismantled or defanged them all.
    — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Over 20 months of war, Israel was able to defang each of its adversaries.
    — Oren Liebermann, CNN Money, 17 June 2025
  • The stormy fake-out in the Haydn’s first movement sounded defanged, and the finale rather polite.
    — Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune, 20 June 2025
  • Here, the vampire has been defanged, relying instead on long claws that cast ominous shadows over the land.
    — Peter Debruge, Variety, 2 Dec. 2024
  • Yet strangely, the killer robot girl who shimmied and stabbed her way into our hearts is defanged and watered down in her return.
    — Brian Truitt, USA Today, 26 June 2025
  • There also are ways Trump could defang the Russia probe short of getting Mueller fired.
    — David Voreacos, Bloomberg.com, 12 Apr. 2018
  • So far removed from the reality of his crimes, Pinochet risks being defanged.
    — The New Yorker, 8 Sep. 2023
  • But regulators managed to defang the wolves, never giving them a chance.
    — The Economist, 4 July 2019
  • Others have hinted at costs for Beirut if the government tries to defang Hezbollah.
    — David Brennan, ABC News, 23 Apr. 2026
  • While much of the original plan has been defanged over the decades, there’s still a lot of the original pieces that are now historical in nature.
    — Edward Keegan, Chicago Tribune, 5 Apr. 2026
  • Iran’s air defenses were largely defanged during a missile and air battle with Israel last year.
    — Ned Temko, Christian Science Monitor, 20 June 2025
  • Larraín’s choice to make Pinochet a vampire is an especially lucid way of defanging him.
    — Valerie Trapp, The Atlantic, 9 Mar. 2024
  • Saturday’s next step in a season that’s been all claws and teeth for the Kings is to tangle with an opponent that has been defanged year over year.
    — Andrew Knoll, Daily News, 3 Apr. 2026
  • Plus, Walters had defanged chance by acquiring something close to sports omniscience.
    — Dan Piepenbring, New Yorker, 4 Feb. 2026
  • As humans have defeated or at least defanged so many outside causes of death, the power of our inheritance comes through even more.
    — Andrew Joseph, STAT, 29 Jan. 2026
  • And as humans have defeated or at least defanged so many outside causes of death, the power of our inheritance comes through even more.
    — O. Rose Broderick, STAT, 30 Jan. 2026
  • Yet those leaders are the main obstacles now to defanging North Korea and Iran.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 19 Sep. 2017
  • In one scene from the sequel, Miranda struggles to hang up her own coat in a bit of hapless slapstick that serves to defang the dragon lady.
    — Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 11 May 2026
  • There’s an old-fashioned, defanged feel to the stories, as if estrangement had been collared and corralled into the safe confines of a folktale.
    — Bruce Sterling, WIRED, 19 May 2010

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'defang.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: