victory

See also: Victory

English
WOTD – 19 December 2022

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: vĭkʹtəri, vĭkʹtri, IPA(key): /ˈvɪktəɹi/, /ˈvɪktɹi/
  • Audio (GA)(file)
  • Hyphenation: vic‧tory

Etymology 1

The noun is derived from Middle English victory, victori, victorie (“supremacy, victory; a defeat or vanquishing, conquest; superior military force; might, power, strength; triumphal celebration or procession; monument commemorating a defeat; superior position, dominance; mastery; moral victory, vindication; success, triumph; redemption, salvation; resurrection of Jesus; means of achieving spiritual victory; reward for or token of perseverance in a spiritual struggle”) [and other forms],[1] borrowed from Anglo-Norman victorie and Old French victorie, a variant of victoire (“victory, win”) (modern French victoire), from Latin victōria (“victory”), from victor (“champion, winner, victor; conqueror, vanquisher”)[2] (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyk- (“to contain, envelop; to overcome”)) + -ia (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). The English word is analysable as victor +‎ -y (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting a condition, quality, or state), and displaced Middle English siȝe, sye.

The interjection is derived from the noun.[2]

cognates

Noun

victory (countable and uncountable, plural victories)

  1. (uncountable) The condition or state of having won a battle or competition, or having succeeded in an effort; (countable) an instance of this.
    Synonyms: triumph, win
    Antonyms: defeat, loss
    It was a great victory on the battlefield.
  2. (Roman mythology) Alternative letter-case form of Victory (“(uncountable) the Roman goddess of victory, the counterpart of the Greek goddess Nike; also (countable), an artistic depiction of her, chiefly as a winged woman”)
    • 1841, M. A. Titmarsh [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], “Mr. Titmarsh to Miss Smith on the Second Funeral of Napoleon. Letter III. The Funeral Ceremony.”, in The Second Funeral of Napoleon: […] And The Chronicle of the Drum. […], London: Hugh Cunningham, […], →OCLC, page 63:
      All along the Champs Elysées were […] statues of plaster representing nymphs, triumphs, victories, and other female personages painted in oil so as to represent marble; real marble could have had no better effect, and the appearance of the whole was lively and picturesque in the extreme.
Alternative forms
Derived terms
Descendants
  • → Maori: wikitōriatanga
Translations
alternative letter-case form of Victory — see Victory

Interjection

victory

  1. Used to encourage someone to achieve success, or to celebrate a success or triumph.
Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English victorien (“to overcome, vanquish”),[3] from Old French victorier, or from Medieval Latin victōriāre, from Latin victōria (noun);[4] see further at etymology 1.

cognates

Verb

victory (third-person singular simple present victories, present participle victorying, simple past and past participle victoried)

  1. (transitive, obsolete or rare) To defeat or triumph over (someone or something).
    • 1639, John Welles, “Of Mortification”, in The Soules Progresse to the Celestiall Canaan, or Heavenly Jerusalem. […], London: […] E[dward] G[riffin] and are to be sold by Henry Shephard […], →OCLC, 2nd part, page 245:
      [W]hen ſin got the upper hand of us, and vvee victoried by them; vve vvere then their ſervants, their ſlave: vvhen vvee overcome and have victoried them; let us make them our ſlaves perpetually; let us bind them in chaines, caſt them in priſon, and for ever utterly deſtroy their evill povver: […]
    • 1663, Edward Waterhous [i.e., Edward Waterhouse], chapter XLVIII, in Fortescutus Illustratus; or A Commentary on that Nervous Treatise De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, Written by Sir John Fortescue Knight, […], London: […] Tho[mas] Roycroft for Thomas Dicas […], →OCLC, page 517:
      [The game of dice and ball] is near of kin, in the nature of the vvord to that game of Cock-all, vvhich boyes uſe amongſt us, vvhich Cock-all, is as much vvin and take all, as a Cock does vvho victorying, has not onely the praiſe of all, but vvins all thats laied on the match by the Abettors againſt him.

References
  1. “victōrī(e, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. “victory, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2022; “victory, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. “victōrīen, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. “† victory, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020.

Further reading
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.