defeat

«defeat» in Mova's school dictionary: to win against someone in a game, fight, war or vote: "we… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (defeat, defeats, defeated, defeating); noun (a defeat, defeats; defeat, uncountable)

meaning for a pupil

1) To defeat means to win against someone in a game, fight, war or vote: "we defeated the visiting team". tree →

2) (noun) A defeat is a loss, the failure to win: "a 3–0 defeat". tree →

3) To defeat something can mean to stop it from working or succeeding: "defeating the purpose". tree →

4) To be defeated by a problem means to fail to solve it: "the last question defeated me". tree →

5) To admit defeat means to give up. tree →

sense in the lessons

In sport reports and history, defeat tells who lost a match or battle. In maths, a team's record counts wins, draws and defeats (losses); points tables use them. In stories, the hero finally defeats the villain. Phrases: suffer a defeat, admit defeat, a crushing defeat, defeat the purpose, a narrow defeat.

examples

• Our team defeated the champions 2–1. tree →
• It was their first defeat of the season. tree →
• The knight defeated the dragon. tree →
• Won 8, drawn 2, defeats 3: the team played 13 games. tree →
• The last puzzle defeated everyone in the class. tree →
• I couldn't open the jar, so I admitted defeat. tree →
• Leaving the fridge open defeats the purpose of having one. tree →
• He made war with all his neighbours, and defeated them. tree →

note

Past: defeated. The opposite of a defeat is a victory or a win. "Defeat" (beat) takes an object: "We defeated them", not "We defeated". Adjective "defeated" also means sad and beaten in spirit.

In the corpora

• Blocking is a tool, not a defeat; you don't have to read what hurts you.
• Babur, a descendant of Timur and of Genghis Khan, founded the Mughal Empire by defeating the Delhi Sultan at Panipat in 1526.
• Elizabeth I ruled England for 45 years, and in 1588 her navy and stormy weather defeated the Spanish Armada.
• In the war of 1894–1895 Japan, which had modernised fast, defeated Qing China and took Taiwan.
• Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931 and began full war on China in 1937; millions of Chinese died before Japan's defeat in 1945.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «defeat» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.