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Glite Dictionary
hasty defense

hasty defense

6.8
A quick setup of troops and barriers to hold ground when time is short
  • noun
  • /ˈheɪsti dɪˈfɛns/
  • Specialized
translation icon : defensa apresurada
  • The Austrians take heavy casualties from flanking musketry fire, fall back, and establish hasty defenses.

Examples

  • The soldiers quickly built a hasty defense to protect themselves from the advancing enemy.

  • In the Grocka campaign, the Ottoman infantry lacked the ability to punch through the Austrians' hasty defense and missed the chance to exploit their initial success.

    Academic text (1999)

  • Facing an unexpected attack, the commander ordered his troops to set up a hasty defense around the base.

  • The hasty defense they constructed with sandbags held up long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Antonyms

preparedness
37 3.8

A state of being ready to act, especially in an emergency

How Hasty

hasty defense
  • Specialized
6.8
deliberate defense
  • Specialized
6.7

Surface Forms

hasty defense singular
hasty defenses plural

Morphology

hasty + defense

The meaning is directly built from 'hasty' (quick, done without much thought) + 'defense' (a protection or fortification), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a quickly organized protective action. This compositional structure is straightforward and cross-linguistically common, so it should be immediately understandable to a B1 learner.

Etymology

The noun hasty defense paints a picture of soldiers making a very hasty defense—digging shallow holes or forming a line behind trees and rocks—because they have little time to prepare. So, because hasty means 'quick', the phrase means a 'quick' and often 'improvised' way to 'hold ground' when the enemy appears.