vanquish

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English venquishen, also vencusen and venquisen,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French venquis (“conquered (past tense)”) and vencus (“conquered (past participle)”), forms of veintre (“to defeat, conquer”),^[4][3][5][6] now vaincre,^[4][5] from Latin vincō (“to overcome, conquer”).^[4][7][8][9] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the first third of the 12th century.^[10] The English ending was assimilated to that of verbs from French stems, as in the suffix -ish,^[4][5] and Hoad dates this to the 15th century.^[5] The spelling vainquisshen (1474) follows vainquiss-, the stem of vainquir (“to conquer”), a rare variant or alteration of the older verb;^[3][4][11] Hoad adds that the forms beginning “ven-” gave way to “van-” in the 16th century by association with the later French “vain-”.^[5] Klein and Skeat instead take the word from the Anglo-Norman stem venquiss- of venquir.^[12][13] Watkins refers the Latin verb to a nasalized form of Proto-Indo-European *weik- (“to fight, conquer”), while de Vaan, as reported by Etymonline, derives it from a similar root meaning "to bend, tie", since bending another can develop into overcoming an opponent.^[7][8] The same Latin verb gave convince, invincible and victory.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To overcome or defeat an enemy in battle: about 1330 in the OED, before 1338 in Barnhart, both from Mannyng's Chronicle.^[4][3] Etymonline puts the word in the mid-14th century,^[7] and Dictionary.com in 1300–50.^[14]

Semantic evolution

From physical conquest the verb soon spread to victories of other kinds: Chaucer's A.B.C. (about 1366) has it of overcoming a person by other than physical means,^[4] and Wyclif used it of overcoming by spiritual power about 1380.^[4] From about 1380 it also took abstract objects such as a feeling or a state of things, as in vanquishing fear.^[4][3] Several senses did not last: to win a battle or contest (before 1400 to 1548), to drive someone out of a place (about 1540 to 1601), and the rare "to convict" (1502) and "to surpass" (1533).^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to conquer; to overcome; to subdue".^[15] The Shorter Oxford now labels the verb literary.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – to defeat an enemy in battle.^[4][3]
• c. 1366 – to overcome a person by other than physical means.^[4]
• c. 1380 – to overcome by spiritual power; to subdue or put an end to a feeling or state of things.^[4][3]
• 1382 – intransitive, to be victorious.^[4][17]
• before 1400 – to win a battle or contest (obsolete by 1548).^[4]
• 1474 – the spelling vainquisshen.^[3]
• c. 1540 – to expel or banish from a place (obsolete by 1601).^[4]
• 1792 – noun, a wasting disease of sheep in Scotland.^[4][17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To defeat thoroughly in battle or in a contest; to conquer: The defending champion vanquished every rival in the tournament.^[18][11][4]
2. To get the better of someone in argument or debate.^[18][4]
3. To subdue or master a feeling, passion or temptation: She finally vanquished her fear of flying.^[18][11][4]
4. Intransitive: to be the victor.^[11][4]

Word family

• vanquishable
• vanquisher
• vanquishment

Related words

• convince
• evince
• victor
• vincible
• invincible
• victory

Usage notes

Scottish vanquish as a noun was a wasting disease of young sheep, recorded from 1792 and formed from the verb.^[4][11] Wright's dialect dictionary marks it obsolete and quotes reports blaming an unwholesome grass or dry, barren moss for it.^[19]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
18. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)