noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Great respect. countable, uncountable

   "The children treated their elders with deference."

2. 2
   a courteous expression (by word or deed) of esteem or regard wordnet
3. 3
   The willingness to carry out the wishes of others. countable, uncountable

   "By tidying his room, he showed deference to his mother."

4. 4
   a disposition or tendency to yield to the will of others wordnet
5. 5
   courteous regard for people's feelings wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

complaisancehonorrespectrespectattentionacceptance

Example

More examples

"Then I'll work on the principle that deference is no substitute for obedience."

Etymology

From French déférence. Morphologically defer + -ence.

Related phrases

in deference tocarry out

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.