vinc-, vict-, -vince, -vincible, -vincibility +

Perseverance succeeds [overcomes or conquers].

Greek > Latin: a reference to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, Greece.

King Pyrrhus (c. 318-272 B.C.) ruled over Epirus, a Greek province, during the years of 307-272 B.C. He invaded Italy and defeated the Roman army at Heraclea in 280 B.C. and Asculum in 279 B.C., but at such great costs that he is said to have remarked, "One more such victory and we are lost." Other versions of his significant words are, "One more victory and I am undone," and "Another such victory and I must return to Epirus alone."

Pyrrhus went to Italy with 25,000 troops two years before when Tarentum asked him to help organize resistance against the Romans, but after Asculum and several other battles, he returned to the kingdom of Epirus in northwest Greece with only 8,000 men.

In 275 B.C., he fought against the Romans again, but he was defeated by the consul Curius Dentatus near Beneventum. He was then forced to abandon Italy and return to Epirus, where he engaged in war with Antigonus II Gonatas, King of Macedonia, then he invaded the Peloponnese, where he failed to capture Sparta.

Although a great warrior and a second cousin of Alexander the Great, he never lived to revive Alexander's empire as he had hoped. Pyrrhus died in 272 B.C. at the age of 46, during a night skirmish in a street ("street fight") in Argos where he was fatally struck by a tile that fell from a roof. His name is primarily remembered by the phrase Pyrrhic victory; which now means, "a victory in which the losses are so great and ruinous that it is no victory at all".

Translation: "To seek, to find, to defeat (conquer)."

To seek, to find, to defeat [conquer].

Woe to the vanquished.

Also translated as, "It is tough to be a loser." This statement is attributed by Livy to Brennus, a chief of the Gauls forced to surrender to the Romans in 390 B.C. It is reported that as he surrendered his sword, he said, Vae victis.

1. To surpass in a conflict or contest: In the race at school, Jeffrey vanquished, or triumphed over, all the others who were taking part in it.
2. To overcome, to subdue, or to suppress an unsatisfactory emotion or physical condition: Linda’s feeling of becoming ill again vanquished when she took the subscribed medicine from the doctor.
3. Etymology: from Latin vincere, "to conquer". © ALL rights are reserved.

Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.

1. Susceptible to being defeated: People are vanquishable and vincible, but ideas, hopes, and dreams are not.
2. Capable of gaining mastery over something: Celia knew her fear of deep water could be vanquishable and overcome once she took swimming lessons.

1. Someone who is victorious by force of arms.
2. Anyone who defeats others in a conflict or contest.

Truth conquers all things.

The truth overcomes.

Motto of Southern Missionary College, Collegedale, Tennessee, USA.

A male name, derived from a Late Latin personal name meaning "conqueror", also with reference to several saints.

The Roman personification of "victory", venerated as a goddess, especially by conquering generals.

There was a temple to her at Rome. Victoria was held in greater esteem by the war-loving Romans than was her Greek counterpart, Nike, by the Greeks.

1. A person who lived during the reign of Queen Victoria.
2. Typical of the moral standards or conduct of the age of Queen Victoria.
3. Relating to Queen Victoria of Great Britain or to the age in which she ruled.

A collector of Victorian furniture.

1. Having won.
2. Experiencing triumph.