Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1300-1400
Language: Anglo-French
Origin: defeter 'to destroy', from Medieval Latin disfacere, from Latin facere 'to do'

defeat

2 verb
     
defeat2 [transitive]
1 to win a victory over someone in a war, competition, game etc [= beat]:
They hoped to defeat the enemy at sea.
defeat somebody by something
We were defeated by 3 goals to 2.
2 if something defeats you, you cannot understand it and therefore cannot answer or deal with it [= beat]:
It was the last question on the paper that defeated me.
3 to make something fail
defeat the object/purpose (of the exercise)
Don't let your arms relax as that would defeat the object of the exercise.
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
 
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