VANQUISH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does vanquish mean? 

• VANQUISH (verb)
  The verb VANQUISH has 1 sense:

1. come out better in a competition, race, or conflict

  Familiarity information: VANQUISH used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VANQUISH (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they vanquish    ... he / she / it vanquishes   
Past simple: vanquished   
Past participle: vanquished   
-ing form: vanquishing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Come out better in a competition, race, or conflict

Classified under:

Verbs of fighting, athletic activities

Synonyms:

beat; beat out; crush; shell; trounce; vanquish

Context example:

Harvard defeated Yale in the last football game

Hypernyms (to "vanquish" is one way to...):

defeat; get the better of; overcome (win a victory over)

"Vanquish" entails doing...:

win (be the winner in a contest or competition; be victorious)

Verb group:

beat; circumvent; outfox; outsmart; outwit; overreach (beat through cleverness and wit)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "vanquish"):

exceed; outdo; outgo; outmatch; outperform; outstrip; surmount; surpass (be or do something to a greater degree)

bat; clobber; cream; drub; lick; thrash (beat thoroughly and conclusively in a competition or fight)

outplay (excel or defeat in a game)

immobilise; immobilize (make defenseless)

checkmate; mate (place an opponent's king under an attack from which it cannot escape and thus ending the game)

overmaster; overpower; overwhelm (overcome by superior force)

outfight (to fight better than; get the better of)

best; outdo; outflank; scoop; trump (get the better of)

get over; master; overcome; subdue; surmount (get on top of; deal with successfully)

outpoint; outscore (score more points than one's opponents)

cheat; chicane; chouse; jockey; screw; shaft (defeat someone through trickery or deceit)

get the jump (be there first)

rout; spread-eagle; spreadeagle (defeat disastrously)

get the best; have the best; overcome (overcome, usually through no fault or weakness of the person that is overcome)

whomp (beat overwhelmingly)

mop up; pip; rack up; whip; worst (defeat thoroughly)

eliminate (remove from a contest or race)

walk over (beat easily)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The fighter managed to vanquish his opponent

Derivation:

vanquishable (susceptible to being defeated)

vanquisher (someone who is victorious by force of arms)

 Context examples 

If he were vanquished, I should be a free man.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the love-tale red-written on the snow.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

In fact, he rather prided himself on his narrow escapes, and liked to thrill the girls with graphic accounts of his triumphs over wrathful tutors, dignified professors, and vanquished enemies.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“Oh, holy Virgin, 'ware the ale!” and slapping his hands to his injury, he flitted off into the darkness, amid a shout of laughter, in which the vanquished joined as merrily as the victor.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All these wonders afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under existing circumstances: except, I think, St. Paul's, which, from her long attachment to her work-box, became a rival of the picture on the lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that work of art.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It had been gradually yielding to the better hopes which her looks, or words, or actions occasionally encouraged; it had been vanquished at last by those sentiments and those tones which had reached him while she talked with Captain Harville; and under the irresistible governance of which he had seized a sheet of paper, and poured out his feelings.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The best fun was with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and low- spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)