Definition of "defund" [defund]

• To stop the flow of funds to: "Some days, they wake up with a burning desire to defund the Public Broadcasting System and the National Endowment for the Arts” ( Joe Conason). (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The American tea partyers are talking about a tactic called defund and disobey."
• "This has been an ongoing discussion for quite some time, with the reddest of the right-leaning anti-public broadcasting crowd fixing to "defund" and altogether eliminate some of the stalwarts of American news such as NPR and PBS."
• "Taxes were cut to "defund" government in order to "starve the beast.""