as in obedience
a readiness or willingness to yield to the wishes of others
the sycophantic deference with which the hotel treats celebrity guests
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of deference
The second Trump administration, well aware of this deference, is using foreign policy as a pretext for its legally dubious actions.
—
Elizabeth N. Saunders, Foreign Affairs, 16 June 2025
The mutilated body of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old murdered for allegedly failing to show proper deference to a white woman.
—Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune, 4 June 2025
We should be united about what’s at stake, compromise in deference to the facts, and work together to build what America needs.
—John Ketchum, Fortune, 24 June 2025
Even as Marine Corps recruiters promote enlistment as protection for families lacking legal status, directives for strict immigrant enforcement have cast away practices of deference previously afforded to military families, immigration law experts say.
—CBS News, 23 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for deference
Elizabeth N. Saunders, Foreign Affairs, 16 June 2025
The mutilated body of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old murdered for allegedly failing to show proper deference to a white woman.
—Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune, 4 June 2025
We should be united about what’s at stake, compromise in deference to the facts, and work together to build what America needs.
—John Ketchum, Fortune, 24 June 2025
Even as Marine Corps recruiters promote enlistment as protection for families lacking legal status, directives for strict immigrant enforcement have cast away practices of deference previously afforded to military families, immigration law experts say.
—CBS News, 23 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for deference
Recent Examples of Synonyms for deference
Noun
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Their intelligence varies by breed and falls into three types: instinctive, adaptive, and working/obedience.—
Lucy Notarantonio,
MSNBC Newsweek,
16 June 2025
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Conformity, obedience, uniformity Authoritarianism is defined by public opinion scholars as an individual’s predisposition toward conformity, obedience and uniformity and an aversion to diversity, difference and individual autonomy.—
Adam Eichen,
The Conversation,
11 June 2025
Noun
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Too many have chosen the politics of non-engagement, which is at best a hair’s breadth away from acquiescence or complicity.—
Kamila Shamsie
June 20,
Literary Hub,
20 June 2025
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This long history of the expansion of executive power, often with the acquiescence of the courts, to violate and restrict civil liberties in the name of national security has ultimately brought us to our current situation.—
The New Yorker,
New Yorker,
9 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Deference.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/deference. Accessed 19 Jul. 2025.
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