Etymologically
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defeat

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /dɪˈfiːt/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English defeten, borrowed from Anglo-Norman defeter,[2][3] from Old French desfait, deffait, the past participle of desfaire “to undo, destroy”,[2][4][5] from Medieval Latin disfacere (“to undo”),[3][6] Vulgar Latin *diffacere,[2][4] from Latin dis- “un-, not” and facere “to do, make”,[2][4] from Proto-Indo-European *dhe- (“to set, put”).[2] It is related to defect, feat and fact.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To destroy the strength or vitality of, to cause to languish: about 1374 in the OED;[7] about 1380 in Barnhart, in Chaucer's Boethius, as “to overcome”;[4] “to overcome with sorrow or anger” in the late 14th century in Etymonline.[2] Its early senses were “to undo, destroy, annul”.[8][6]

Semantic evolution

To ruin or destroy is from the early 15th century (now obsolete),[2][7] and to frustrate or bring a plan to nothing from 1474.[7][2] In law, to annul is from 1525.[7] To cheat someone out of something expected is from the 1530s,[2][7] and to beat in a contest of any kind from the 1560s.[2] The noun first meant an undoing or ruin (1599, in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and Henry V),[4][7] and a defeat in battle is from 1600, the usual term from about 1650.[7] Of other contests, such as a government's defeat in parliament, it is from 1697.[7] Defeatism and defeatist are from 1918, from French, first applied to the Russians.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1374 – to waste, weaken.[7]
  • early 15th century – to ruin.[2]
  • 1474 – to frustrate.[7]
  • 1525 – to annul.[7]
  • 1560s – to beat in a contest.[2]
  • 1599 – noun, undoing.[4][7]
  • 1600 – noun, defeat in battle.[7]
  • 1918 – defeatism.[4]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To win a victory over an enemy or opponent; to beat.
  2. To stop something from succeeding: defeat the purpose.
  3. To be too difficult for someone to understand.
  4. (law) To make void or annul.

Noun

  1. Failure to win, or the act of being beaten.
  2. The act of defeating an opponent or a proposal.

Word family

  • defeater
  • defeatable
  • redefeat
  • undefeatable
  • self-defeating
  • defeasance
  • defeasible
  • defeatism
  • defeatist
  • defeature
  • defect
  • feat
  • fact
  • feature

Usage notes

Defeat is the most general word for getting the better of an opponent; conquer adds the idea of lasting control, vanquish suggests a complete defeat, and rout a defeat followed by flight.[9]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin