different between defeat vs shellacking

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??fi?t/
• Rhymes: -i?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English defeten, from Middle English defet (“disfigured”, past participle) and defet (“defect”, noun), see Etymology 2 below.

Verb

defeat (third-person singular simple present defeats, present participle defeating, simple past and past participle defeated)

1. (transitive) To overcome in battle or contest.

   Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

2. (transitive) To reduce, to nothing, the strength of.
   • 1663, John Tillotson, The Wisdom of being Religious

     He finds himself naturally to dread a superior Being that can defeat all his designs, and disappoint all his hopes.

   • 1879, Adolphus Ward, Chaucer, in English Men of Letters

     In one instance he defeated his own purpose.

3. (transitive) To nullify
   • 1827, Henry Hallam, The Constitutional History of England

     The escheators […] defeated the right heir of his succession.

Derived terms

• self-defeating

Synonyms

• vanquish, overcome, beat

Hyponyms

• conquer (defeat and annex); rout, crush, cream (decisive); shutout, zilch (sports, to defeat without permitting any opposing score)

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English defet, from French deffet, desfait, past participle of the verb desfaire (compare modern French défaire), from des- + faire.

Noun

defeat (countable and uncountable, plural defeats)

1. The act or instance of being defeated, of being overcome or vanquished; a loss.

   Licking their wounds after a temporary defeat, they planned their next move.
2. The act or instance of defeating, of overcoming, vanquishing.

   The inscription records her defeat of the country's enemies in a costly war.

3. Frustration (by prevention of success), stymieing; (law) nullification.
   • 1909, The Southern Reporter, page 250:

     ... is subsequently issued to him, in accordance with his perfect equity thus acquired, by a legal fiction which the law creates for the protection, but not for the defeat, of his title.

   • 2008, Gene Porter, A Daughter of the Land, volume 1 (?ISBN), page 17:

     She could see no justice in being forced into a position that promised to end in further humiliation and defeat of her hopes.

4. (obsolete) Destruction, ruin.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, act 4, scene 1:

     and made defeat of her virginity

Antonyms

• victory

Translations

Anagrams

• feated

English

Etymology

Noun sense: shellac is used in floor polish; compare polishing, as in "the other boxer in the match polished the floor with me; I took quite a polishing".

Verb

shellacking

1. present participle of shellac

Noun

shellacking (plural shellackings)

1. (informal, US) A heavy defeat, drubbing, or beating; used particularly in sports and political contexts.
   • 1929 The Typographical Journal, vol. 75 (July, 1929), p. 49:

     The News baseball team defeated the Press-Guardian outfit, 8 to 4, in a recent game, which squares accounts for the shellacking the News received a year ago.

   • 1929 Time, "National Affairs: Vote Castings", November 18, 1929:

     Mourned Candidate La Guardia: "What a shellacking they gave me!"

   • 1929 The Leatherneck, vol. 12 (December, 1929), p. 21:

     Our baseball team got off to an indifferent start at the beginning of the season, but […] "Steve" Newman gave Gonzalo another shellacking that he won't forget for some time.

   • 1944 Frank Marshall Davis, "Defeats of the Home Front" (news article, February 23, 1944; reprinted in Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press, University Press of Mississippi, 2009, p. 126):

     Unity and democracy are still taking a shellacking here on the home front, despite our successes in the Marshall Islands and in Italy.

   • 2009 Lee Hamilton, Strengthening Congress, p. 69:

     After many months of watching its public image take a shellacking as a result of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, Congress finally started to move on lobby reform.

   • 2010 Peter Baker, "What Does He Do Now?", The New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2010:

     [C]learly Obama hopes that just as Clinton recovered from his party's midterm shellacking in 1994 to win re-election two years later, so can he.

   • 2010 Ben Shpigel, "Charmed Giants Take a Big First Step," The New York Times, October 28, 2010:

     Bochy was speaking for the masses, who watched a supposed duel of Cy Young award winners evolve into a full-fledged shellacking.

   • 2010 November 4, Barack Obama, comments at a press conference, after his political party lost control of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections:

     Now, I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I took last night.

   • 2015 AFL Grand Final, West Coast Eagles copped a shellacking. If they turned up to the game prior to the second half, they may have been in the Contest.