5/28/2020 Vanquished Meaning
To vanquish is to be the complete and total winner, to overpower and overcome, whether in a contest, a race, or a war. It generally suggests a total trouncing, to the point of humiliation — or worse — for the loser.
Sometimes words for the same thing are effective in different ways because they offer different levels of meaning. For example, in a game, you can simply win, or you can vanquish your opponent. The former is enough, but the latter makes that defeat sound so much worse, like a total rout. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once stated, 'Against war it may be said that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished revengeful.'
Dead, vanquished by the sword, betrayed by fortune, crushed with grief. The liberal party appears to be vanquished in the sphere of economics. They were vanquished, it was all ended; then why not stop the slaughter? ‘Its report, in the spring, is likely to demand radical change in relations between the rich and poor world if abject poverty is to be vanquished.’ ‘Certain diseases that we thought we had vanquished years ago are coming back.’ ‘As at least three art historians allege, St. George never vanquished a dragon, as legend asserts.’.
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