How to Use DEFCON in a Sentence

DEFCON

noun
  • This trio were the top three scoring midfielders for DEFCON points last season.
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2026
  • Team strength still comes first DEFCON should complement your decisions, not replace them.
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2026
  • For the majority of the series, Marissa is in DEFCON 5 trauma.
    — Brande Victorian, HollywoodReporter, 15 Aug. 2026
  • This can be hard to identify at the start of the season as players who were good for DEFCON last season may not provide the same value due to factors such as a change in management, tactics or role.
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2026
  • Understand player roles Not every defender in the same team will produce similar DEFCON numbers.
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2026
  • Target defenders who defend The biggest mistake many managers made last season was underestimating the value of DEFCON points.
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2026
  • For example, a player who regularly collects DEFCON points could finish 20-50 points ahead of another with similar clean-sheet numbers.
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2026
  • Margo’s identity reveal triggers a DEFCON 5 situation for Mark’s mother.
    — Erin Qualey, Vulture, 6 May 2026
  • One of the biggest changes to Fantasy Premier League last season was the introduction of defensive contributions (also known as DEFCON).
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2026
  • Everybody’s favourite Premier League companion game evolves year on year, with the introduction of defensive contribution (DEFCON) this season as well as two sets of super-powered chips.
    — Holly Shand, New York Times, 26 May 2026
  • Just as an example, Burnley’s Maxime Esteve picked up the fifth-most DEFCON points (38) among defenders but finished 62nd on the list of highest-scoring defenders.
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2026
  • According to Politico, White House officials met with organizers of the hacker conference DEFCON in March and agreed at that time to support a public red-teaming exercise.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 15 Mar. 2024
  • Bonus Points are awarded to the three best-performing players in each match, while Defensive Contributions (also known as DEFCON) points are rewards for actions such as tackles, clearances, interceptions and recoveries.
    — Abdul Rehman, New York Times, 10 Aug. 2026
  • By May, administration officials announced their support to attempt an AI red teaming exercise at the upcoming DEFCON 31 conference in Las Vegas.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 15 Mar. 2024
  • Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepMind have all outlined escalating levels of safety precautions—akin to the military’s DEFCON system—corresponding to more powerful AI models.
    — Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, 21 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'DEFCON.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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