prevailed
- 1Simple past tense and past participle of prevail.
Despite heavy losses, the smaller army prevailed against its larger foe.
Common sense has prevailed, and the dangerous plan was quietly dropped.
Note
One regular -ed spelling does double duty: it stands alone as a past tense (the army prevailed) and follows have in the perfect (common sense has prevailed). Nearly every meaning of prevail is intransitive, whether winning, predominating or persuading, so the form takes no direct object. You cannot say a rival was prevailed. Only an obsolete transitive use, meaning "to avail," once took an object.
prevailed is a form of prevail
prevail, verb: To be superior in strength, dominance, or influence; to gain the upper hand over others. Full entry
- Forms
- prevailprevails he/she/itprevailing -ing formprevailed past tense, past participle
- Spelling
- prevail → prevailed: add -ed
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /d/.
Use it in a sentence
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