1. defeat - Noun
2. defeat - Verb
To undo; to disfigure; to destroy.
To render null and void, as a title; to frustrate, as hope; to deprive, as of an estate.
To overcome or vanquish, as an army; to check, disperse, or ruin by victory; to overthrow.
To resist with success; as, to defeat an assault.
An undoing or annulling; destruction.
Frustration by rendering null and void, or by prevention of success; as, the defeat of a plan or design.
An overthrow, as of an army in battle; loss of a battle; repulse suffered; discomfiture; -- opposed to victory.
Source: Webster's dictionaryVictory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan. John F. Kennedy
If you live long enough, you'll see every victory turn into a defeat. Simone de Beauvoir
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt
The strong will defeat one, the knowledgeable a thousand. Bashkir proverb
Victory makes you into an emperor, defeat into a rebel. Vietnamese Proverb
He who does not admit defeat is not a sportsman. Swahili Proverb