Defeat

How to spell defeat

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce defeat

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does defeat mean?

1. verbTo win a victory over someone or something in a contest, battle, or competition.
2. nounThe fact of losing a contest, battle, or struggle; an instance of being beaten.

Defeat in a sentence

• verb

  Our team hoped to defeat the regional champions on Saturday.

• noun

  The narrow defeat in the final left the players in tears.

• verb

  A strong legal argument can defeat the opposing claim in court.

• noun

  She accepted the election defeat with quiet dignity.

Where does defeat come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old French desfait, the past participle of desfaire, meaning 'to undo' or 'to destroy'. That verb was built from the Latin prefix dis-, meaning 'apart' or 'undo', joined to facere, meaning 'to do' or 'to make', so the literal sense was something like 'to unmake' or 'to take apart'. English borrowed it in the 1300s, first carrying the harsh meaning of ruining or destroying, before settling into the modern sense of beating an opponent or being overcome. The same facere root sits inside the noun 'feat', an accomplished deed, which is exactly why the second syllable is spelled with the 'ea' of feat rather than the simpler 'ee'. Remembering that a defeat literally undoes a feat is a handy way to lock in the tricky vowel pairing.

How the word is built

• de- (undo, reverse)
• feat (from Latin facere: to do, to make)