I think using defn as an example here is a poor choice for this argument. defn is not an abbreviation of `define` or 'defun', instead it is a fusion of `def` an

I think using defn as an example here is a poor choice for this argument. defn is not an abbreviation of `define` or 'defun', instead it is a fusion of `def` and `fn`. fn is clojure's anonymous function form and def binds a var to a value. You can see this via macroexpand: user=> (macroexpand '(defn f [x] x)) (def f (.withMeta (clojure.core/fn f ([x] x)) (.meta (var f)))) [edit: clarified an ambiguous initial statement]