vanquish
Americanverb (used with object)
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vanquishes,
present (3rd person singular)
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vanquished,
past participle, past
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vanquishing
present participle
verb
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to defeat or overcome in a battle, contest, etc; conquer
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to defeat or overcome in argument or debate
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to conquer (an emotion)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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vanquishernoun
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vanquishmentnoun
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unvanquishableadjective
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unvanquishedadjective
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unvanquishingadjective
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vanquishableadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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vanquishsimple
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vanquishessimple
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have vanquishedperfect
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has vanquishedperfect
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am vanquishingprogressive
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are vanquishingprogressive
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is vanquishingprogressive
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have been vanquishingperfect progressive
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has been vanquishingperfect progressive
Past
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vanquishedsimple
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had vanquishedperfect
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was vanquishingprogressive
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were vanquishingprogressive
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had been vanquishingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of vanquish
1300–50; Middle English vencuschen, venquisshen < Old French vencus past participle and venquis past tense of veintre < Latin vincere to overcome
Explanation
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."
Vocabulary lists containing vanquish
Grade 10, List 1
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The Tragedy of Macbeth
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"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 19–24
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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.
See Examples For:
Warsh has vowed the Fed will vanquish inflation and meet its 2% goal, but Wall Street investors have grown more doubtful.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 31, 2026
The militias emerged during the U.S. occupation of Iraq and later helped the U.S. vanquish Islamic State.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 2026
There is a problem, though, and it comes from the unlikelihood that OpenAI or Anthropic will ever vanquish the other.
From Slate ● Feb. 10, 2026
And writers’ enthusiasm for em dashes is often hard-won, given that plenty of editors and readers would be happy to vanquish those ostentatious marks from the page entirely.
From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2025
The sun came early, causing him to turn over in protest, but in going to sleep he had learned to vanquish light, and now the light could not rewake him.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
For instance, in one scene in the Depardieu film, Cyrano duels and vanquishes a vicomte who insults his nose.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2022
The sequel, which George P. Cosmatos directed, vanquishes any trace of interiority and tripled the original’s domestic gross.
From New York Times ● May 28, 2020
The verse in Crimp’s woos and vanquishes just as seductively, though the leaner verse couples of rap battles and poetry slams.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 13, 2020
The only thing I didn’t like about Near Dark at the time was its ending: Caleb vanquishes Jesse and Severen and manages to reverse the vampirism afflicting him and Mae by transfusing his father’s blood.
From Slate ● Oct. 2, 2017
Here, and perhaps here only—certainly here in transcendence—Balzac grapples with, and vanquishes, the bare, stern, unadorned, unbaited, ironic facts of life.
From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century by Saintsbury, George
Eighty years ago, though the Arsenal of Democracy had vanquished the Axis and weathered a withering Depression, the recovering American people found themselves rich in bills but short on laughs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
Once the slave power had been vanquished, the Reconstruction Congress sought to enshrine birthright citizenship in the Constitution so it could never be stripped away again.
From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2026
In this zero-sum view of the world, any perceived enemies must not merely be defeated but vanquished altogether.
From Salon ● Mar. 10, 2026
At 32, after multiple game-saving stops, Hellebuyck is now a legend in the U.S. and vanquished Canada.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
Biddy’s first triumph in her new office, was to solve a difficulty that had completely vanquished me.
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
In a fascinating footnote, the disgraced admiral reclaimed his reputation and won a peerage in Britain by vanquishing the French in a 1782 naval battle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026
The work represents "the vanquishing of nuclear war through the historic treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States", according to the UN website.
From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2025
The driving forces of the moment are fixated less on enlightenment than on attacking, distorting and vanquishing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2024
Yet, in a world marked by scientific uncertainty, the promise of "a cure" as a magic elixir is the ultimate expression of science vanquishing the bad enemy.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2023
We’re going to be vanquishing villains left and right.
From "Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures" by Kate DiCamillo
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.
