From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishparrypar‧ry /ˈpæri/ verb (parried, parrying, parries) 1 PMWDEFEND[intransitive, transitive] to defend yourself against someone who is attacking you by pushing their weapon or hand to one side SYN deflect It is far easier to parry a direct blow than to stop it forcibly.2 AVOID[transitive] to avoid answering a question that is difficult to answer or that someone does not want to answer He parried all her questions about his work. —parry noun [countable]→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
parry• Clash keeper David Kramer was barely able to parry a 23-yard shot from the left side by Ted Chronopoulos.• In truth, I found her rather a pain on the subject and merely parried her constant questions about my job-hunting activities.• Before Macready could thrust, Carradine parried perfectly.• Clinton repeatedly parried questions from reporters on his personal finances.• I could parry some of the weaker kids.• He slashed across his body to parry the attack of the man on the left.• The two then fenced at each other with their beaks, each parrying the other's thrust.Origin parry (1600-1700) Probably from French parez! “prepare!”, from parer; → PARE 