I have not seen any definition that fits the usage in the following:
" While scholarly works suggest this may have potential to defray trust and undermine perceptions of reliability among potential supporters or partners…"
" It is meant to defray trust again in all of the forces in society that are trying to regulate Donald Trump."
Is the word defray being misapplied in the above? If it is correct what does defray mean in the above usage? It seems like the word ‘defray’ as used above means to undermine, but I could not find that definition.
Defray is almost always used in a sense of reducing, but not eliminating some costs. “The bake sale helped defray the costs of the class trip” or the like. Otherwise you would say “covered” or “paid for.” You would also never use defray as a general synonym for “pay,” such as “I defrayed my share of the bill at the restaurant.” It’s always some indirect method. I can see how someone might think that reduction is the meaning, rather than paying.
I’m not sure “paying” is really a correct definition, either. “We negotiated a student discount with the travel company, which helped defray the costs of the class trip” is sensible, I think. But no one is making a payment there.
Original meaning was to spend or pay in any sense. It pretty soon acquired the narrower meaning of to pay a bill, meet an outstanding charge or expense, and the wider sense fell out of use. It also acquired a secondary sense of paying someone else’s bill; if I defray John, it means I am meeting an expense incurred by John.
Negotiating a discount is not defraying an expense; it’s avoiding the expense arising in the first place, so you don’t have to defray it. This might be a developing sense of the word but I’ve not come across it before.
Buying bulk will help you defray costs significantly by driving the cost down to what conventional flour usually costs.
Buying in bulk is just a discount, so no payment.
Many energy companies are now offering lease programs to defray the start-up costs and bill you on a monthly basis with a cost similar to your current power bills.
Renting something instead of buying it is also not a payment.
This does not quite defray the interest on the cost of their construction and equipment, inasmuch as it barely comes to 31% thereon, but rates and fares are deliberately kept low to encourage settlement and communication.
Keeping rates and fares low in the first place is also not a payment.
Discussing the rules and positive aspects of social networking with your friends and family can also defray negative repercussions.
Much like the OP’s example, this is completely unrelated to money.
I’m not sure where these examples came from originally. Some might be considered an error (especially the last). But I’m sure I’ve seen fairly common usage of defray as a general reduction of costs, not necessarily by actual payment.
Well, fair enough; that is a developing sense of the word, so. It may be a sense that has developed, or developed further, in American English than in other varieties of English.
I am pretty curious if there’s a trans-Atlantic or other difference. As I said, the “discount” version I’ve seen before. Though the third example above doesn’t sound very American to me with its use of “thereon” (pretty rare in my experience). Could be Indian English, for example.
I’m not convinced that the third example is in fact an instance of the “discount” sense of the word. We’re told that “this” does not defray the cost of paying interest, but we have no idea what “this” refers to. I see no reason to assume that’s its a discount.
In fact, I think it isn’t. I think the passage refers to something like a government railway, and the sense is something like:
“[Revenue from fares] does not quite defray the interest on the cost of [building and equipping the railway], inasmuch as it barely comes to 31% [of that cost], but [this is because] rates and fares are deliberately kept low to encourage [use of the railway so as to promote] settlement and communication.”
So, no discount. Fare revenue is not sufficient to defray - i.e. pay - the railway company’s interest bill. It’s the payment of bills sense.
Yes, you’re right. There’s some ambiguity in the “this,” but my initial reading didn’t actually make sense. Still, there are other examples.
Part of the question though is whether it must strictly refer to a payment, or if it can relate to a discount or other means of reducing some cost that doesn’t involve a money transfer. I agree that outside of the examples in this thread, it always refers to a monetary cost of some kind. But in the usage I’m familiar with it could include discounts.
Agreed, but metaphorical use is one of the ways that meanings evolve. So is this kind of usage common enough that we can treat it as a new meaning, or are these just isolated cases?
That one and the OP’s are a bit different, though. As you mention, “negative repercussions” can be seen as a cost that is being reduced. In the OP’s example, “trust” is (presumably) not a cost, but rather a benefit that’s being reduced. If it’s not simply an error, we might see the evolution of meaning as: payment of expense => reduction of expense => reduction of metaphorical cost => reduction of any abstract thing.
I think you’re right about it being a malapropism. They may have been intending to say ‘fray’ in the sense of corroding or gradually diminishing, which serves the quoted context but grabbed ‘defray’ as the more common word rattling in their brains. As others have pointed out there are better synonyms they could have used. They were right on the wrong tact.
I first heard this usage in an interview (I believe it was with Tony Schwartz, author of ‘The Art of the Deal’). I listened to it several time to make sure I heard it correctly. That’s when I looked for other examples and found them on Google. If I can find the clip I’ll post it.