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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

prevail.

To be superior in strength, dominance, influence, or frequency; to have or gain the advantage over others; to have the upper hand; to outnumber others.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/pɹɪˈveɪl/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/pɹɪˈvæɪl/Australia/pɹəˈvæɪl/New-Zealand
  1. To be superior in strength, dominance, influence, or frequency; to have or gain the advantage over others; to have the upper hand; to outnumber others.

    intransitive
    Red colour prevails in the Canadian flag.
    Sunny skies will prevail across the Northeast.
  2. To triumph; to be victorious.

    intransitive
  3. To be current, widespread, or predominant; to have currency or prevalence.

    intransitive
    In his day and age, such practices prevailed all over Europe.
  4. To succeed in persuading or inducing.

    intransitive · often
    I prevailed on him to wait.
  5. To avail.

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English prevailen, from Old French prevaler, from Latin praevaleō (“be very able or more able, be superior, prevail”), from prae (“before”) + valeō (“be able or powerful”). Displaced native Old English rīcsian.

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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.