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defeat

verb · noun

Simple meaning

To overcome in battle or contest.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

dihfeet

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

dɪˈfit

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. transitive

    To overcome in battle or contest.

  2. To prevent (something) from being achieved.

  3. transitive

    To reduce, to nothing, the strength of.

  4. transitive

    To nullify

noun

  1. The act or instance of being defeated, of being overcome or vanquished; a loss.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: To overcome in battle or contest.

Used this way, defeat is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Negative
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Gentle
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Serious and weighty
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

final defeatcrushing defeattotal defeat

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • defeatednounInflected form

    People who are defeated.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

verb

Sense: to overcome in battle or contest

overcome

noun

Sense: act or instance of being defeated

lickingInformal

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.