Waterloo
pronunciation
How to pronounce Waterloo in British English:
UK [ˌwɔ:təˈlu:]
How to pronounce Waterloo in American English:
US [ˌwɔtərˈlu]
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- Noun:
- a final crushing defeat
- the battle on 18 June 1815 in which Napoleon met his final defeat; Prussian and British forces under Blucher and the Duke of Wellington routed the French forces under Napoleon
Word Origin
- Waterloo
- Waterloo: [19] The decisive battle at which the army of Napoleon was finally defeated by British, Dutch, and Prussian forces was fought just outside the village of Waterloo, near Brussels in Belgium, on 18 June 1815. The word Waterloo soon came to be used metaphorically for a ‘final and crushing defeat, something that puts one hors de combat for ever’. The first record of this new application comes in a letter written in 1816 by Lord Byron to his friend Thomas Moore: ‘It [Armenian] is … a Waterloo of an Alphabet’.
- Waterloo (n.)
- village near Brussels; the great battle there took place June 18, 1815; extended sense of "a final, crushing defeat" is first attested 1816 in letter of Lord Byron. The second element in the place name is from Flemish loo "sacred wood."
Example
- 1. Man : can you tell me the way to waterloo ?
- 2. Napoleon met his waterloo , but the idea didn 't go away .
- 3. It was , as wellington said after waterloo , a damned close run thing .
- 4. Psychologists at the university of waterloo in ontario conducted two studies of 186 people , divided by gender .
- 5. The british victory at waterloo garnered him vast profits and cemented his family 's influence for decades .