defeat
pronunciation
How to pronounce defeat in British English:
UK [dɪˈfiːt]
How to pronounce defeat in American English:
US [dɪˈfiːt]
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- Noun:
- an unsuccessful ending
- the feeling that accompanies an experience of being thwarted in attaining your goals
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- Verb:
- win a victory over
- thwart the passage of
Word Origin
- defeat
- defeat: [14] Etymologically, to defeat someone is literally to ‘undo’ them. The verb comes from Anglo–Norman defeter, a derivative of the noun defet. This in turn came from Old French desfait, the past participle of the verb desfaire. This was a descendant of medieval Latin disfacere, literally ‘undo’, a compound verb formed from the prefix dis-, denoting reversal, and Latin facere ‘do, make’.Its original metaphorical extension was to ‘ruination’ or ‘destruction’, and the now central sense ‘conquer’ is not recorded in English before the 16th century. A classical Latin combination of facere with the prefix dē- rather than dis- produced defect, deficient, and deficit.=> defect, deficient, deficit
- defeat (v.)
- late 14c., from Anglo-French defeter, from Old French desfait, past participle of desfaire "to undo," from Vulgar Latin *diffacere "undo, destroy," from Latin dis- "un-, not" (see dis-) + facere "to do, perform" (see factitious). Original sense was of "bring ruination, cause destruction." Military sense of "conquer" is c. 1600. Related: Defeated; defeating.
- defeat (n.)
- 1590s, from defeat (v.).
Example
- 1. That 's a good recipe for defeat .
- 2. Defeat is not the worst of failures .
- 3. How does the mongoose defeat the king cobra ?
- 4. Japanese soldiers felt a similar sense of stigmatisation after returning from defeat in 1945 .
- 5. How do you defeat the hiding syndrome ?