Meanings
- USlawA legal defense in which the defendant claims to have committed a crime in the belief that they were not in the real world, but in a simulated reality.
1 more example
There is now a legal strategy called the "Matrix defense," which has been an effective form of insanity defense. The film evidently had a part in inspiring Lee Malvo, the Washington D.C. sniper, and it has been mentioned in connection with the Columbine High School killings, which happened less than a month after the release of The Matrix.
2012, C. Stephen Jaeger, Enchantment: On Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 41
Origin
From the plot of the film The Matrix (1999), whose protagonist is woken from an illusionary simulated world into the dystopian reality.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Matrix defense. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Matrix%20defense
“Matrix defense.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Matrix%20defense. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Matrix defense,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Matrix%20defense.
Source: Matrix defense on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.