defeat

Formsdefeats, defeating, defeated

Pluraldefeats

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To overcome an opponent in battle, competition, or contest.

   The general's forces defeated the rebels at the river crossing.

   A smaller army can defeat a larger one through superior tactics.

   Similarbeat, overcome, conquer, overpower, rout

   Note

   The battlefield meaning is the familiar one, but the word's roots speak of undoing rather than winning. Middle English defet meant "disfigured" and "defect". Behind it stands French desfait, past participle of desfaire, made from des- plus faire: to un-make. The verb takes its loser as a direct object, often with the place added after at: Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The condition or experience of being beaten or overcome; a loss.

   The army's defeat marked the end of the long war.

   He could not hide his disappointment after such a heavy defeat.

   Similarloss, beating, failure

   Oppositevictory, win, triumph, success

   Note

   The loser's noun, and one that can be counted: a side suffers two defeats in five games, and an army a heavy defeat. Watch the possessive. To put the winner first you need of, as in her defeat of the country's enemies, which is the victor's sense. Without of, read a possessive like Napoleon's defeat as naming the side that lost.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of overcoming or vanquishing an opponent.

   The general's defeat of the rebels restored order to the province.

   Her defeat of three former champions earned her the title.

   Similarconquest

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To prevent something from being achieved or carried out.

   Lack of funding defeated the project before it began.

   Procedural delays can defeat even the best-intentioned reforms.

   Similarthwart, frustrate, foil, derail, sink

   Note

   The subject is usually an obstacle, and the object is an attempt, an effort or a plan. A sharp railway curve can be said to have "defeated all attempts so far" to use diesel shunters. Nothing is fought here; something is only stopped. Unlike the battle sense, there need be no opponent at all, and "defeated all attempts" is the phrase to reach for.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To render something void or without force; to nullify.

   The amendment defeated the original intent of the statute.

   Conflicting terms defeat the claim entirely.

   Similarnullify, invalidate, negate, void

   Note

   Here the word undoes a right or a claim rather than an army. That fits its origin: French desfait comes from desfaire, built from des- and faire, roughly 'un-do'. Henry Hallam's Constitutional History of England (1827) has escheators who "defeated the right heir of his succession," stripping him of what was his. Its object is a right, title or intent, and the matching noun is the legal 'nullification' sense.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To reduce the strength of something to nothing.

   Months of hardship defeated his determination to keep going.

   Harsh conditions can defeat the strength of even the fittest crews.

   Similarbreak, crush, overcome, sap

   Note

   Here what is beaten is a plan, not a person, and the objects are designs, hopes and purposes. John Tillotson in 1664 dreads a Being that can "defeat all his designs". Adolphus Ward, writing on Chaucer in 1879, says that "in one instance he defeated his own purpose." That reflexive pattern, defeating one's own purpose, is the one most worth knowing: the subject undermines the very thing it set out to do.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The frustration or blocking of something so that it cannot succeed; in law, the nullification of a right or claim.

   The defeat of the merger came after months of regulatory wrangling.

   Lawyers argued for the defeat of the competing claim under the new statute.

   Similarrejection, failure, frustration, nullification

   Note

   Law gives the noun a precise target: a title, right or claim that is made void. The Southern Reporter of 1909 speaks of a legal fiction created "for the protection, but not for the defeat, of his title," with protection as its natural opposite. Outside the courtroom the same noun means frustration, and its usual object is hopes, as in the "defeat of her hopes."

Showing meanings only. Show all 8