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Pyrrhic victory

  (pĭr'ĭk) pronunciation
n.

A victory that is offset by staggering losses.

[After PYRRHUS.]


 
 
Investment Dictionary: Pyrrhic Victory

A victory or success that comes at the expense of great losses or costs. In business, examples of such a victory could be succeeding at a hostile takeover bid or winning a lengthy and expensive lawsuit.


Investopedia Says:
In 2001, Microsoft won a Pyrrhic victory in its antitrust case when the Appeals Court decided the software giant was not to be broken up. However, Microsoft was still branded a monopoly and was subject to other punishment.

The expression alludes to the Greek King Pyrrhus who, after defeating the Romans in battle, stated: "If we win another such battle against the Romans, we will be completely lost."

Related Links:
Check out the history and reasons behind antitrust laws, as well as the arguments over them. Antitrust Defined


 
Idioms: Pyrrhic victory

A victory that is offset by staggering losses, as in The campaign was so divisive that even though he won the election it was a Pyrrhic victory. This expression alludes to Kind Pyrrhus of Epirus, who defeated the Romans at Asculum in 279 BC, but lost his best officers and many of his troops. Pyrrhus then said: "Another such victory and we are lost." In English the term was first recorded (used figuratively) in 1879.

 
Wikipedia: Pyrrhic victory
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A Pyrrhic victory is a victory with devastating cost to the victor. The phrase is an allusion to King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties when he defeated the Romans during the Pyrrhic War at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC. After the latter battle, Plutarch relates in a report by Dionysius:


“ The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one more such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war. [1] ”

In both of Pyrrhus's victories, the Romans lost more men than Pyrrhus did. However, the Romans had a much larger supply of men from which to draw soldiers, so their losses did less damage to their war effort than Pyrrhus's losses did to his.

The report is often quoted as "Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone." While it is most closely associated with a military battle, the term is used by analogy in fields such as business, politics, law, literature, and sport to describe any similar struggle which is ruinous for the victor, such as the USFL v. NFL lawsuit or the Conservative Party's victory in the 1992 General Election in the United Kingdom.

Examples

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Plutarch (trans. John Dryden) Pyrrhus, hosted on the The Internet Classics Archive

Secondary sources

  • Denson, John, The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Victories. Transaction Publishers (1997). ISBN 1-560-00319-7.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Investment Dictionary. Copyright ©2000, Investopedia.com - Owned and Operated by Investopedia Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Idioms. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pyrrhic victory".  Read more

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