defeasible

«defeasible» in Mova's school dictionary: able to be cancelled or overturned, for example a right… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

adjective (defeasible; not compared)

meaning for a pupil

(formal, law, logic) Defeasible means able to be cancelled or overturned, for example a right, a contract or a conclusion that may be undone by new facts. tree →

sense in the lessons

A rare scholarly word. In law, a defeasible right can be taken away if a condition happens. In logic and thinking skills, a defeasible conclusion is a good guess that new evidence could overturn: «Birds fly, so Tweety flies» — unless we learn Tweety is a penguin. It reminds us that many everyday conclusions are «true unless shown otherwise».

examples

• «Tweety is a bird, so Tweety flies» is a defeasible conclusion. tree →
• The judge said the agreement was defeasible. tree →
• Most everyday reasoning is defeasible: new facts can change our minds. tree →
• The family's right to the land was defeasible if they stopped farming it. tree →
• A scientist's theory is defeasible if a better experiment shows it wrong. tree →
• The rule is defeasible: there are exceptions. tree →

note

Very formal and rare. Opposite: indefeasible (cannot be taken away). Pronounced «dih-FEE-zuh-bul». Not related to «defeat» in meaning, though the two words share an old root.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «defeasible» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.