defeat the purpose in English

Forms: defeats the purpose [present, singular, third-person], defeating the purpose [participle, present], defeated the purpose [participle, past], defeated the purpose [past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} defeat the purpose (third-person singular simple present defeats the purpose, present participle defeating the purpose, simple past and past participle defeated the purpose)

Inflected forms

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "defeats the purpose",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "defeating the purpose",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "defeated the purpose",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "defeated the purpose",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "defeat the purpose (third-person singular simple present defeats the purpose, present participle defeating the purpose, simple past and past participle defeated the purpose)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To undermine the act of doing something by having an opposite effect; to nullify."
      ],
      "id": "en-defeat_the_purpose-en-verb-d9hKMJ7s",
      "links": [
        [
          "undermine",
          "undermine"
        ],
        [
          "opposite",
          "opposite"
        ],
        [
          "effect",
          "effect"
        ],
        [
          "nullify",
          "nullify"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "frustrar / anular el propósito"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "defeat the purpose"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "defeats the purpose",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "defeating the purpose",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "defeated the purpose",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "defeated the purpose",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "defeat the purpose (third-person singular simple present defeats the purpose, present participle defeating the purpose, simple past and past participle defeated the purpose)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Spanish translations",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To undermine the act of doing something by having an opposite effect; to nullify."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "undermine",
          "undermine"
        ],
        [
          "opposite",
          "opposite"
        ],
        [
          "effect",
          "effect"
        ],
        [
          "nullify",
          "nullify"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "frustrar / anular el propósito"
    }
  ],
  "word": "defeat the purpose"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (51d164f and fb63907). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"defeat the purpose" meaning in English

Verb

Inflected forms