defund

verb de·fund \ (ˌ)dē-ˈfənd \

Updated on: 21 Apr 2018

Definition of defund

: to withdraw funding from

Recent Examples of defund from the Web

According to Time and People, the two have clashed since their initial encounter over Trump's silence on Republican attempts to defund the nonprofit.

— rebecca elliott, Houston Chronicle, "Cecile Richards, in Houston to promote memoir, urges Texans to the polls," 8 Apr. 2018
Last year, after the latest attempt to defund her organization had been turned back, Richards was at a celebration in Nashville.

— belinda luscombe, Time, "Outgoing Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards Is Not Done Fighting," 29 Mar. 2018
In 2017, Texas Governor Greg Abbott used the line-item veto to defund the state’s Colonia Initiatives Program.

— sarah jones, New Republic, "Rural America’s Drinking-Water Crisis," 12 Feb. 2018
In 2013, the government shut down after Republicans insisted any government funding bill include provisions defunding Obamacare.

— jack holmes, Esquire, "A Brief Survey of Republicans Blaming Democrats for the Looming Government Shutdown," 19 Jan. 2018
Since that date, several states, like South Carolina and Arizona, have attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, but none have made it quite as far as Nebraska.

— amanda arnold, The Cut, "Nebraska Lawmakers Pass Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood," 3 Apr. 2018
The decision not to defund Planned Parenthood was amongst the criticisms leveled against the $1.3 trillion spending bill President Trump signed last week.

— elizabeth zwirz, Fox News, "Backlash after Planned Parenthood branch tweets: 'We need a Disney princess who's had an abortion'," 27 Mar. 2018
Josh Holmes, a former top aide to McConnell, points to recent history to make the case that Democrats are the ones to blame: In 2013, conservative Republicans refused to vote for a spending bill that did not defund Obamacare.

— amber phillips, Washington Post, "The government just shut down. Now what do lawmakers do?," 20 Jan. 2018
At a rally in Pennsylvania ahead of the special election, Trump also made a call to defund sanctuary cities in the funding bill — which would be a nonstarter for Democrats.

— tara golshan, Vox, "Congress has 5 days to keep the government open," 19 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'defund.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.