There are despotic and murderous regimes all over the world and cultures whose affinity for evil and hatred defies comprehension. |
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A bowler, bowling a grubber to prevent a winning run being scored, defies the conventions of cricket, but not its rules. |
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There is undoubtedly a divide across Europe, a sense of distinctness, which defies analysis in political or geographical terms. |
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In many respects Tanzania defies the claim that girls are disadvantaged in terms of education in sub-Saharan Africa. |
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That view, which defies history, evidence, logic and rationality has been pumped out by the media, who now unshakeably believe their own rubbish. |
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It is also violative of Article 29 of the Constitution, which defies cultural imposition of minorities. |
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Anyone who defies or dares to challenge them is subject to the most awful abuse and vituperation, all of it personal, racist and ideological. |
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The result is a borderline-incoherent story that is so riddled with holes and impossibilities that it defies understanding. |
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If he defies the board and stays on until the end of his contract, there is only one outside candidate who could possibly wait until then. |
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Yet while he works within scales commonly associated with other cultures, his sound defies any overt connection to world music. |
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There in Brighton is a Heath Robinson contraption that defies the laws of physics. |
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The Liberal Democratic Party is a Heath Robinson contraption which defies the Laws of physics. |
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In a general way, the one who openly defies you, who refuses to cooperate with you is an open enemy. |
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But often a sudden, overnight brand sensation is something that defies convention. |
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The pavement raises hob with them and seems to impart a grade of dirt which defies removal. |
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It defies narrative conventions by its length, its metaphysical breadth and its visual sumptuosity. |
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Most songs end up in a vaguely alt-rock area somewhere between the Music and Pearl Jam, although the overall effect defies description. |
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At some stage or the other in our lives we experience the gnawing pangs of an emotion which defies definition. |
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I couldn't resist a magical, exotic pale pink patisserie creation that almost defies description. |
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This is a thriller that cheekily defies the ground rule of keeping you in suspense about who did it. |
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The loose geometry suggests a kind of preindustrial masonry or fabric patterning, while the range of colors defies generalization. |
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The example of Germany shows that reunification can come at a time and in a way that defies prediction. |
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We should listen to expert advice, but to slavishly follow it on every occasion defies logic. |
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However, in this piece, she played a brash American, with an accent which defies description. |
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The big problem is, the script is knuckleheaded, employing a plot twist that defies all reason for the sake of mere surprise. |
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They are not re-makes or covers exactly, more like new originals, archetypal versions sung with an unknowingness that defies ownership. |
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We also showed in our earlier studies that tobacco smuggling defies apparent economic logic. |
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Marian's writing and eavesdropping defies the traditional ascription of maleness to narrative agency, although it is later re-established. |
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It's a psychological bond and a real establishment of a cultural commitment and connection that defies description. |
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Such a lopsided result defies the laws of probability and suggests something sinister at work. |
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So the superhero who fights monsters also defies his guardian and falls in love. |
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Every now and again a record comes along that defies you to ignore it, and here's one of them. |
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It is a harsh, inhospitable land, covered in flies and governed by insufferable temperatures that defies easy civilization. |
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It also defies belief that the Law proposes that rents are divorced from the ability to pay. |
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And how such reading exercises would help genuine poets replenish their language defies comprehension. |
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This book defies the old adage that claims you can't judge a book by its cover. |
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That defies belief, and it is certainly manna from heaven for the incoming National candidate, who will clearly win that seat. |
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His management style, his beliefs, are a baffling blend that defies categorization. |
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Fair rents are established by an individual consideration of a statutory definition that defies scientific precision. |
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It is an enormously complex and difficult problem that defies easy solution. |
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Chapter 2 has a this-happened, then that-happened quality that defies a simple and compact summary. |
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But looking through the list, I come across names whose inclusion defies any reasonable justification. |
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Leaving a small child alone at home defies basic, fundamental common sense. |
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An intermittent pettiness about where throw-ins and free kicks are taken from that defies logic is to be expected. |
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By writing comix about how relationships evolve Watson defies expectations. |
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The instant possesses an immemorial elasticity that defies quantitative diagnosis. |
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It defies any genre classification, because it can go from insanely heavy drama to light farce in a heartbeat. |
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To be condemned for the colour or creed you were born with, really defies reason or sanity. |
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It also defies commentators to find an easy generic shorthand for its mode of creation. |
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Personhood is no doubt an open-ended concept that defies philosophic analysis in unclear cases. |
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However, this thesis is only sketchily developed, and sometimes defies common sense. |
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Without a doubt, this is a multidimensional issue that defies a simple response. |
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The mouse took his exit from the stage at this point, leaving a situation that defies being wound up with any kind of a satisfactorily dramatic close. |
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It defies plausibility to suggest that president after president after president is blundering or inept. |
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Faye is so devoted to Don that she defies her ethical code in order to put him into contact with potential new clients. |
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This case simply has not been made, nor can it be, because it defies logic. |
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The Enterprise is a vessel that defies the landlubber's imagination. |
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In diction that juxtaposes archaisms with a lyricism that defies easy explication, McCarthy offers not a simple subject position but a widening pool of imagistic encounter. |
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The capacity of our Council for loony decisions defies the imagination. |
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Similarly, Jones defies an easy assimilation into civilian society. |
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To do so in a Salvadoran prison defies comprehension and inspires respect for their grit and determination. |
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Or the receiver leaping in gyration to catch a poorly thrown ball that defies all bounds of athleticism. |
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To suggest that he hounded Frum out of his institute on the basis of one little blog defies belief. |
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It defies the cold grip of the season by indulging in festivity. |
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The act itself is grounded in irrationality, so it often defies rational explanations. |
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The opera tells of the adventures of a sharp-witted young vixen cub who defies all men who want to tame her to explore life for herself in the forest. |
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Fowler, whose brilliance defies her slight figure, plugged through to strike partner Helen Wix, who earned a short corner off the foot of Bethan Walsh. |
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Sure there's a sucker born every minute, but the alarming regularity at which these ideas conceived by the company are actually sold to clients defies comprehension. |
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Admittedly, over-the-top car crashes aren't anything new in these movies, but there's this one scene which defies all attempts to rationalize it away. |
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One of the driving principles of magical thinking is the notion that things that resemble each other are causally connected in some way that defies scientific testing. |
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She has honed her muscles to a level which almost defies description. |
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He has a face so unusually characterful that it almost defies caricature. |
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There's something about the Christmas season that defies even the most secular of societies and brings out the people to fill up church pews in normally unheard of numbers. |
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It is deeply disturbing that such an attitude that defies common sense should come from those that are supposed to protect society from racist behaviour. |
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Exactly how a vendor which of its own volition posts information in a public forum can then go back and claim it's proprietary defies comprehension. |
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Putting aside for a moment that it's primarily non-verbal, so by nature it defies verbal explanation, but I'm also by no means as adept as I intend to be. |
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The courage shown by passengers in that flight defies description. |
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The jig-saw puzzle of nation states in Africa, which defies geopolitical and economic logic, is simply the legacy of Europe's sharing out of Africa. |
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This time I call the realm of the super-cunt, for it defies speed, calculation or imagery. |
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Truth and reason constitute that intellectual gold that defies destruction. |
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The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defies categorisation. |
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In his plea for masculism John Macy defies the champions of present-day feminism. |
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Cumella's use of crackling to create a 'humble' piece defies it a traditional exhibitory quality. |
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King Leonidas defies the advice of the Oracle and the Spartan Council to lead his 300 men against the despotic Xerxes. |
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Marko defies dominant depictions of women by replacing the elements of provocation with ferocity and urban trendiness. |
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Her description of the family as monstruous garden gnomes and her friends as social misfits defies understanding. |
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In the Whedonverse, who is willing and able to become a hero often defies two-dimensional thinking or traditional expectations. |
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As such, the surveillance arguably defies the strictures of limitedness that support a conclusion that a search is reasonable. |
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As with several other compositions in this collection, Skalkottas's use of a ternary form is so altered in presentation that it virtually defies recognition. |
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But eldest daughter Maggie is made of equally stubborn stuff and defies her dad to marry painfully shy bootboy Will Mossop and set up a rival shop. |
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A plan to tow more than a dozen rust buckets of ships, each an environmental hazard in its own right, through Irish waters to a scrapyard in north-east England defies belief. |
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Perhaps a more trenchant criticism is that predicting megagrowth stocks defies hard analysis or, as the author says, is largely a matter of intuition. |
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Romeo speaks of a foreboding he feels in the stars' movements early in the play, and when he learns of Juliet's death, he defies the stars' course for him. |
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If thou dost not comply with these just demands, he defies thee to single combat to the last extremity. And so saying, the Herald cast down his warder. |
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He felt, for a moment, as the daring archimage whose spells, too potent for their master's safety, have evoked and unchained a spirit that defies their guidance. |
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The potential of combinatorial chemistry for screening defies imagination. |
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Adapted by Martin from his novella of the same name, Shopgirl is a contemporary romantic comedy that flirts with, and defies the conventions of, the genre. |
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