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Defeat   /dɪfˈit/   Listen
noun
Defeat  n.  
1.
An undoing or annulling; destruction. (Obs.) "Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made."
2.
Frustration by rendering null and void, or by prevention of success; as, the defeat of a plan or design.
3.
An overthrow, as of an army in battle; loss of a battle; repulse suffered; discomfiture; opposed to victory.


verb
Defeat  v. t.  (past & past part. defeated; pres. part. defeating)  
1.
To undo; to disfigure; to destroy. (Obs.) "His unkindness may defeat my life."
2.
To render null and void, as a title; to frustrate, as hope; to deprive, as of an estate. "He finds himself naturally to dread a superior Being that can defeat all his designs, and disappoint all his hopes." "The escheators... defeated the right heir of his succession." "In one instance he defeated his own purpose."
3.
To overcome or vanquish, as an army; to check, disperse, or ruin by victory; to overthrow.
4.
To resist with success; as, to defeat an assault. "Sharp reasons to defeat the law."
Synonyms: To baffle; disappoint; frustrate.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Defeat" Quotes from Famous Books



... Some foreknowledge of defeat clarified the young author's vision, and a bitter melancholy crept over him as the third act unrolled. "They will go out," he said to himself, "and they will not come back for the last act. The play is doomed ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... man like Pogner ought to know as well as he knows that women have no real taste, that they are capable of preferring the sorriest stuff to all the poetry in the world. How shall he, Beckmesser, avoid a disappointment, a public defeat? He decides upon reflection to try the prize-song he has prepared, as a serenade, and make sure beforehand that the maiden will ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Accordingly, in the third year from that time Hyllus led an army to the Isthmus of Corinth; but there he was encountered by an army of Achaians and Arcadians, and fell in single combat with Echemus, king of Tegea. Upon this defeat the Heracleidae retired to northern Greece; there, after much wandering, they finally took refuge with AEgimius, king of the Dorians, who appears to have been the fastest friend of their house, and whose Dorian warriors formed the army which at last achieved their return. ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... purpose. The unhappy woman was entirely alone in the world, and had no one to whom she could apply for protection or advice. Her father, the Count de Puymandour, had died suddenly a month before, owing to chagrin caused by his defeat when a candidate for a seat in the Chamber. The brief note from the despairing mother, in which followed the words, "Have mercy! Give me back my child!" hardly describes the terrible events that occurred in the lonely Chateau to which Norbert ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... minutes. Three more of her kind occupying an adjacent shack begged to be allowed time in which to load their personal possessions in an express-wagon. The four Greeks were just about to set out for a day's fishing, but, having witnessed the defeat of the mulatto bully, the fever of the hegira seized them also. They loaded their effects in the fishing-launch, and chugged away up river to Darrow, crying curses upon the young laird of Tyee and ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne


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