victory
 admit defeat(alsoconcede defeat)
to accept that you have lost a fight or competition:
She admitted defeat well before all the votes had been counted.
to accept that you cannot do something: 承认失败
I thought I could fix the radio myself, but I had to admit defeat.本以为自己可以修好收音机，但是我不得不承认自己不行。
The Democrats suffered a crushing defeat in the last election.民主党在上次选举中遭遇了惨败。
Her silence was taken as an admission of defeat.
He was famed for his stubborn resistance and his refusal to accept defeat.他以顽强抵抗、不甘失败著称。
Saturday's 2-0 defeat dashed their hopes of reaching the final.周六0比2的失利粉碎了他们进入决赛的希望。
His defeat in the world championship led to a long period of gloomy introspection.世界锦标赛上失败后，他长期处于郁郁寡欢和自我反省之中。

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Winning and defeating
annihilate
annihilation
bank
be gunning for someoneidiom
be one in the eye for someoneidiom
convincing
moral victory
move/go/close in for the killidiom
near thing
outclass
outcompete
sew
slaughter
sweep
take someone down
take someone to the cleaner'sidiom
take something apart
takedown
thrash
thrashing

defeat | American Dictionary

defeat
verb[ T ]
us/dɪˈfit/
to oppose and cause someone to lose in a competition or war so that you can win:
Bill Clinton defeated George Bush for the presidency in 1992.
defeat
noun[ C/U ]
us/dɪˈfit/
success in competition with an opponent, causing the opponent to lose so that you can win:
[ U ]In the American Civil War, the North’s defeat of the South involved tremendous loss of life on both sides.
A defeat is also the action or fact of losing a competition or war:
[ C ]This was the team’s fifth straight defeat.

Examples of defeat

defeat
In fact, any error in measuring the favourability of news coverage would have defeated the purpose, which was to estimate media effects.
The movement was defeated but repression was quite limited.
On reflection, however, these corresponding victories and defeats do not tell the true story.
If defeated, he would immediately call a general election.
Many exclusivists are epistemically impoverished, and thus the epistemic status of their exclusive beliefs may well be lessened or defeated by religious diversity.
Television seems to me inimical to this inner sense, which is defeated by the ephemerality of the televisual flow.
Revelations and confessions produce resolution and stability by defeating ignorance and equalising the knowledge of the audience and the characters.
During the porfiriato, challenges to authority in the factory were usually and regularly defeated.
Among the latter, some viewed workers as eliteled, while others saw them as radical and threatening but defeated by 1916\\17.
With a financial system based on municipal rents, the possibility of decent maintenance and upkeep was defeated by the massive scale of non-payment.
Parts of a defeated group's inkatha were incorporated into that of the victorious group.
Corticotropin-releasing factor antagonist reduces emotionality in socially defeated rats via direct neurotropic action.
Obviously recent defeats, outrage at domestic political developments and unfavourable international circumstances all played a major role in such a cycle of commitment.
Candidates running against the establishment were defeating candidates who had until recently appeared unbeatable.
Only historical materialism could take "the tiger's leap into the past" to bring back to consciousness precisely the defeated, marginalized, and forgotten resisters.
See all examples of defeat
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations withdefeat

defeat

These are words often used in combination with defeat.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

admission of defeat
This is a rallying cry rather than an admissionofdefeat, however, and research proceeds apace.
admitting defeat
In such a case, however, the proper response is not simply to ignore the challenge, but rather to put off admittingdefeat, acknowledging the need for further study.
certain defeat
Otherwise, the defendant would expect near certaindefeat in court.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
See all collocations with defeat