affront

1. (transitive) To insult intentionally, especially openly.Examples: "But beſides, that ſuch a thought was inconſiſtent with the gravity of a Senate, how can one imagine that the Fathers would have dared affront the Wife of Aurelius, and the Mother of Commodus, or that they could think of giving offence to an Empreſs whom they afterwards Defied, and to an Emperor that was the darling of the army and people?"transitive

2. (transitive) To meet defiantly; to confront.Examples: "to affront death"; "Avignon was beginning to settle down for the night – that long painful stretch of time which must somehow be affronted."transitive

3. (transitive, obsolete) To meet or encounter face to face.Examples: "Many Iſlands there lie all over that ſea : but one above the reſt, and moſt renowned, is Tazata : for thither all the ſhipping from out of the Caſpian ſea and the Scythian Ocean, doe bend their courſe and there arrive : for that all the ſea coaſts doe affront the Levant, and turne into the Eaſt."; "Sweet Gertrude leaue vs too, / For we haue cloſely ſent for Hamlet hither, / That he, as ’twere by accident, may there / Affront Ophelia."obsoletetransitive