When Ms. Plisetskaya hung in the air, seemingly motionless, it was not evasion but sheer defiance.

He held on with one hand, as if sheer defiance could counteract the relentless pull of gravity.

Waiting becomes an act of blissful escape and sheer defiance as people abandon their daily lives to stand together in hope for "something, anything to happen".

This was a new emotion with Barbara: one of sheer defiance.

It sat in my wardrobe malevolently for a while until, out of sheer defiance, I grew two inches in as many months and in most directions.

One or two of the trees have died in gestures of sheer defiance.

Those unbidden spurts of protean growth or sheer defiance that can scupper scientific smugness and fashionable pessimism alike?

Her first thought was sheer defiance, but under the Blaster's level stare she changed her mind visibly.

The valley is also crisscrossed by an extensive network of stone walls, some climbing straight up the mountainsides in sheer defiance of gravity.

I was halfway tempted to poke the cloud man in sheer defiance... but such antics would be most childish, and perhaps would make Aarhus think less of me.