1. To win victory over; beat.
2. To prevent the success of; thwart: Internal strife defeats the purpose of teamwork.
3. Law. To make void; annul.

1. The act of defeating or state of being defeated.
2. Failure to win.
3. A coming to naught; frustration: the defeat of a lifelong dream.
4. Law. The act of making null and void.

[Middle English defeten, from defet, disfigured, from Old French desfait, past participle of desfaire, to destroy, from Medieval Latin disfacere, to destroy, mutilate, undo : Latin dis-, dis- + Latin facere, to do.]

SYNONYMS   defeat, conquer, vanquish, beat, rout, subdue, subjugate, overcome. These verbs mean to triumph over an adversary. Defeat is the most general: "Whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequences will be the same" (Thomas Paine). Conquer suggests decisive and often wide-scale victory: "The Franks . . . having conquered the Gauls, established the kingdom which has taken its name from them" (Alexander Hamilton). Vanquish emphasizes total mastery: Napoleon's forces were vanquished at Waterloo. Beat is similar to defeat, though less formal and often more emphatic: "To win battles . . . you beat the soul . . . of the enemy man" (George S. Patton). Rout implies complete victory followed by the disorderly flight of the defeated force: The enemy was routed in the first battle. Subdue suggests mastery and control achieved by overpowering: "It cost [the Romans] two great wars, and three great battles, to subdue that little kingdom [Macedonia]" (Adam Smith). Subjugate more strongly implies reducing an opponent to submission: "The last foreigner to subjugate England was a Norman duke in the Middle Ages named William" (Stanley Meisler). To overcome is to prevail over, often by persevering: He overcame his injury after months of physical therapy.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.