defendían

Defendían is the third-person plural form of the Spanish verb defender in the imperfect indicative. It expresses past actions that were ongoing, habitual, or not completed at the reference time. In English, it commonly corresponds to “they defended” or “they used to defend,” depending on context. It can refer to defending people, ideas, territories, or positions, and is used with a direct object or with a clause that specifies what is being defended.

Morphology and tense: Defender is a regular -er verb, and in the imperfect tense its endings are -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían. The form defendían adds the ending -ían with the accent on the i. This distinguishes it from the preterite defendieron, which marks a completed past action.

Usage and nuance: The imperfect is used to describe actions in the past that were continuous, repeated, or backgrounded in a narrative. It can also convey a habitual defense of a person, idea, or cause, rather than a single, finished act. In indirect discourse, it appears after verbs of reporting, e.g., “decían que defendían la postura con argumentos sólidos.”

Examples:

- Los soldados defendían la fortaleza durante la noche.

- Antes defendían a sus vecinos cuando había amenazas.

- El equipo decía que defendían la estrategia con rigor.

Notes: Defendir puede also mean to advocate or justify a stance, and defendían may appear with distintas matices according to the broader context, but it remains the imperfect plural form used for past, ongoing, or habitual defense actions.

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