- defeat
- {{Roman}}I.{{/Roman}} nounADJECTIVE▪ complete, comprehensive (esp. BrE), decisive, heavy, major, overwhelming, resounding, serious, stunning, total▪
Their party suffered a heavy defeat in the election.
▪ bitter, catastrophic, crushing, devastating, disastrous, embarrassing, humiliating, ignominious (formal)▪The battle ended in a humiliating defeat.
▪ narrow▪They lost 4–3 in their second narrow defeat of the week.
▪ consecutive, successive▪ final, ultimate▪ election, electoral, political▪ militaryVERB + DEFEAT▪ accept, admit, concede▪She is very determined, and will never admit defeat.
▪The prime minister conceded defeat and resigned.
▪ face▪ experience, suffer▪ go down to, slump to (both BrE, sports)▪The team went down to their fifth consecutive defeat.
▪ reverse (BrE)▪A good politician can always reverse any defeats.
▪ avoid▪We just need to avoid defeat in our last two games.
▪ inflict▪The army inflicted a heavy defeat on rebel forces.
▪ end in▪ lead toPREPOSITION▪ defeat against▪last week's crushing defeat against their rivals
▪ defeat by▪their defeat by the Brazilians
PHRASES▪ defeat at the hands of sb▪The team suffered defeat at the hands of their oldest rivals.
▪ turn defeat into a victory▪{{Roman}}II.{{/Roman}}They turned a military defeat into a media victory.
verbADVERB▪ comprehensively (BrE), convincingly (esp. BrE), decisively, easily, handily (AmE), heavily (BrE), overwhelmingly, roundly, soundly, thoroughly▪The English were decisively defeated by the rebels in the battle that followed.
▪The senator was decisively defeated by his rivals.
▪ completely, totally▪ militarily▪He said it was impossible to defeat the terrorists militarily.
▪ narrowly▪Our team was narrowly defeated in the final.
▪ eventually, finally, ultimatelyPREPOSITION▪ by▪The motion was defeated by 20 votes to 18.
Defeat is used with these nouns as the subject: ↑army
Collocations dictionary. 2013.
