defeat: [14] Etymologically, to defeat someone is literally to ‘undo’ them. The verb comes from Anglo–Norman defeter, a derivative of the noun defet. This in turn came from Old French desfait, the past participle of the verb desfaire. This was a descendant of medieval Latin disfacere, literally ‘undo’, a compound verb formed from the prefix dis-, denoting reversal, and Latin facere ‘do, make’.
Its original metaphorical extension was to ‘ruination’ or ‘destruction’, and the now central sense ‘conquer’ is not recorded in English before the 16th century. A classical Latin combination of facere with the prefix dē- rather than dis- produced defect, deficient, and deficit. => defect, deficient, deficit
defeat (v.)
late 14c., from Anglo-French defeter, from Old French desfait, past participle of desfaire "to undo," from Vulgar Latin *diffacere "undo, destroy," from Latin dis- "un-, not" (see dis-) + facere "to do, perform" (see factitious). Original sense was of "bring ruination, cause destruction." Military sense of "conquer" is c. 1600. Related: Defeated; defeating.
defeat (n.)
1590s, from defeat (v.).
实用例句
1. After the pain of defeat passes, England have some thinking to do.
失败的痛苦过去以后，英国人应该认真反思一下。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Initially the government was unwilling to accept the defeat.
最初政府不愿意承认失败。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Sampdoria lost their unbeaten record with a 2-1 home defeat against Genoa.
桑普多利亚队主场1比2负于热那亚队之后，终止了自己的不败纪录。
来自柯林斯例句
4. They had their championship hopes dashed by a 3-1 defeat.
遭遇1比3的失利后，他们的冠军梦就此破灭。
来自柯林斯例句
5. Second-placed Auxerre suffered a surprising 2-0 home defeat to Nantes.