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prevail

verb

Simple meaning

To be superior in strength, dominance, influence.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

prihvayl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

pɹɪˈveɪl

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. intransitive

    To be superior in strength, dominance, influence, or frequency; to have or gain the advantage over others; to have the upper hand; to outnumber others.

  2. Prove superior

    “The champion prevailed, though it was a hard fight.”

  3. intransitive

    To triumph; to be victorious.

  4. intransitive

    To be current, widespread, or predominant; to have currency or prevalence.

  5. intransitive

    To succeed in persuading or inducing.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: To be superior in strength, dominance, influence, or frequency; to have or gain the advantage over others; to have the upper hand; to outnumber others.

Used this way, prevail is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

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

More ways to use prevail

  • “He prevailed upon her to visit his parents.”verb
  • “The champion prevailed, though it was a hard fight.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

conditions prevailultimately prevailnow prevail

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • prevailing partynounCompound term

    The party in a lawsuit who obtains a judgment in their own favor.

  • prevailing westerlynounCompound term

    The winds from the west that occur in the temperate zones of the Earth.

  • prevailing windnounCompound term

    The predominant wind direction.

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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.