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Defeat vs Shellacking - What's the difference?

defeat | shellacking |

As verbs the difference between defeat and shellacking

is that defeat is to overcome in battle or contest while shellacking is present participle of shellac.

As nouns the difference between defeat and shellacking

is that defeat is the act of defeating or being defeated while shellacking is a heavy defeat, drubbing, or beating; used particularly in sports and political contexts.

defeat

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To overcome in battle or contest.
    • Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.
  • To reduce, to nothing, the strength of.
  • * Tillotson
    • He finds himself naturally to dread a superior Being that can defeat all his designs, and disappoint all his hopes.
  • * A. W. Ward
    • In one instance he defeated his own purpose.
  • To nullify
  • * Hallam
    • The escheators defeated the right heir of his succession.

    Synonyms

    (To overcome in contest) * beat * conquer * overthrow * rout * vanquish

    Related terms

    * defeasance * defeasible * defeater * defeatism * defeatist * defeature

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of defeating or being defeated.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 13 , author=Alistair Magowan , title=Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Two defeats in five games coming into this contest, and a draw with Everton, ultimately cost Sir Alex Ferguson's side in what became the most extraordinary finale to the league championship since Arsenal beat Liverpool at Anfield in 1989.}}

    shellacking

    English

    Verb

    (head)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (informal, US) A heavy defeat, drubbing, or beating; used particularly in sports and political contexts.
  • * 1929 , 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 , "National Affairs: Vote Castings", November 18, 1929:
    • Mourned Candidate La Guardia: "What a shellacking they gave me!"
  • * 1929 , 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 , "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 , 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 , 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," , 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, , 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.