trophy

Pluraltrophies

Formstrophies, trophying, trophied

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An object, often a statuette, cup, or shield, awarded for success in a competition or to mark a special achievement.

   The championship trophy gleamed under the stadium lights as the captain raised it.

   A row of trophies lined the school's display case.

   Similaraward, prize

2. 2
   nouncountable

   An emblem of success; something owned or displayed mainly as a sign of status.

   The penthouse was less a home than a trophy, proof of how far he had climbed.

   For some collectors, rare watches are trophies more than timepieces.

   Similarshowpiece

   Note

   Here the prize is no longer taken from anyone. It is bought, married or built to be seen. Used before a noun, it marks something valued for the prestige of owning it, as in the soaring prices paid for trophy works of art. Unlike the captured prize, a trophy in this sense advertises its owner's success rather than an enemy's defeat.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An object taken as a prize by a hunter, conqueror, or combatant, especially one put on display.

   The general kept the captured sword as a trophy in his study.

   Mounted heads and other trophies covered the lodge walls.

   Similarprize, souvenir, memento, spoil

   Note

   Hunters and armies share this word because both keep what they take and put it on show. John Dryden's Virgil (1697) hangs captured chariots, shields and the broken beaks of ships around the posts as "the trophies of their wars." Before another noun it can simply mean captured: Soviet engineers tested their guns on German trophy tanks, machines seized in war rather than won in any contest.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A wild animal killed by a trophy hunter, typically with its parts sold on the black market.

   The poached lion was nothing more than a trophy to the dealers who bought its hide.

   Each trophy taken from the reserve feeds the black-market trade in animal parts.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   Something a serial killer or rapist keeps from a crime as a reminder of it.

   Investigators realized the missing rings were trophies the murderer had collected.

   Each trophy linked him to another unsolved case.

   Similarsouvenir, memento, keepsake

   Note

   Criminologists borrowed the hunter's word for something darker: a personal item taken from a victim and kept so the offender can relive the crime. The extension casts the victim as quarry, and the term belongs to investigation and profiling rather than casual speech. In a sentence it usually names evidence that investigators find, recover or link to a suspect.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A display of weaponry and other military gear, often captured from a defeated enemy, arranged as an ornament to celebrate a victory or show off a ruler's might.

   Above the archway, a sculpted trophy of spears and banners proclaimed the king's conquests.

   Baroque facades often featured trophies of arms framing the central doorway.

   Note

   An ornament of palaces and triumphal arches: weapons, helmets and banners grouped into a single composition, usually called a trophy of arms. It inherits the purpose of the ancient battlefield monument but moves it indoors and onto facades. There it serves a ruler's display of martial power as often as it commemorates an actual victory.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A work of art or other artifact that has been stolen and is then bought and sold on the black market.

   The looted vase was treated as a trophy in private collections for decades.

   Interpol tracks stolen trophies as they move through underground dealers.

8. 8
   verbintransitive

   To win a trophy as the result of success in a competition.

   After three straight finals defeats, the side finally trophied this spring.

   Few expected the underdogs to trophy in their debut season.

   Similarwin

   Note

   Competition results use it as a compact way to say someone finished among the prize-winners. It takes no object and usually pairs with at plus the event. The Star Tribune in 2021 recalls a man who "trophied at the 1993, 1994, 2012 and 2015 National Championships." In general writing, won a trophy says the same thing more plainly.

9. 9
   verbtransitive

   To adorn or decorate a person with trophies.

   How many a night serene, shall I behold / Those vvarm attractive orbits, close inshrined / In ether, over vvhich Love's column rose / Marmoreal, trophied round vvith golden hair.

   1798, Walter Savage Landor, Gebir

   Note

   A poet's verb, most at home as a past participle: something trophied is hung or wreathed with trophies. Walter Savage Landor's Gebir (1798) raises a marble column "trophied round with golden hair," turning the spoils of war into an image of love. Its forms (trophies, trophying, trophied) are identical to those of the verb for winning a trophy, so only context tells them apart.

10. 10
    nounhistoricalcountable

    A monument formed from the arms and spoils of a defeated enemy, raised by the ancient Greeks and Romans at the site of a victory.

    The Greeks raised a trophy on the field where the Persians broke and ran.

    Each trophy marked the exact spot where the enemy was routed.

    Note

    Every later meaning goes back to a battlefield marker. Greek trópaion came from tropḗ, "a turning" or rout, and stood where the enemy turned and fled. At first it was a tree or post hung with captured arms, and later it was rebuilt in stone. The Latin form, tropaeum or tropæum, is the precise term for the monument and keeps it apart from the competition prize it eventually named.

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