Waterloo
Americannoun
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a village in central Belgium, south of Brussels: Napoleon decisively defeated here on June 18, 1815.
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a decisive or crushing defeat.
The candidate met her Waterloo in the national elections.
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a city in E Iowa.
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a city in SE Ontario, in S Canada.
noun
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a small town in central Belgium, in Walloon Brabant province south of Brussels: battle (1815) fought nearby in which British and Prussian forces under the Duke of Wellington and Blücher routed the French under Napoleon. Pop: 29 003 (2004 est)
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a total or crushing defeat (esp in meet one's Waterloo )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In April, a statue of a man carrying a flag appeared in Waterloo Place near Trafalgar Square.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
Organisers in Belgium said they had cancelled this weekend's reenactment of Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo because of the heatwave.
From Barron's ● Jun. 27, 2026
Governments like Canada’s “pushed the idea of immigration to solve problems, and it just didn’t do anything,” said Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
After the chaos Russia sustained in the 1990s, Mr. Putin, having brought stability, expected to be heralded by the West the way Alexander I was after Waterloo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
And Ned said, “I live in Waterloo, Iowa.”
From "Winger" by Andrew Smith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
