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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

defeatism.

Acceptance of defeat without struggle.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dɪˈfiːtɪzəm/UK
  1. Acceptance of defeat without struggle.

    uncountable · usually
    Objective assessment is good, but defeatism will reduce our potentials even when the prospects for victory have never been nearer.
Where this word comes from

From defeat + -ism, after French défaitisme, coined in 1915 by Russian writer Grigorij Aleksinskij as a translation of Russian пораже́нчество (poražénčestvo), also coined by him as a derivation of порази́ть (porazítʹ, “to strike, defeat”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.