prevail

• prævail, prævaile, prævale (obsolete)

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.

• IPA^(key): /pɹɪˈveɪl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl
• Hyphenation: pre‧vail

prevail (third-person singular simple present prevails, present participle prevailing, simple past and past participle prevailed)

1. (intransitive) 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.

   Red colour prevails in the Canadian flag.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 17:11:

     And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

   • 2022 February 27, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 0-0 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Liverpool created a host of chances and had a Joel Matip goal ruled out for a foul and offside in an incident-packed game that went right down to the wire before Jurgen Klopp's side prevailed.

2. (intransitive) To triumph; to be victorious.
   • 2019 January 14, “Exploring the SCP Foundation: SCP-2935 - O, Death” (0:36 from the start), in The Exploring Series‎^[2], archived from the original on 25 March 2023:

     There are a number of SCPs and tales that look at potential apocalypses, but rarely with such totality as SCP-2935, a parallel dimension in which death prevailed.

   • 2023 July 19, Nick Paton Walsh and Katharina Krebs, “MI6 chief makes open plea to Russians to spy for UK”, in CNN‎^[3]:

     Zakharova also made light of Moore’s claims that Russia will not be able to regain momentum in the war after the MI6 chief said he was”optimistic”^[sic] Ukraine would prevail against the Russian invasion.

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

   In his day and age, such practices prevailed all over Europe.

4. (intransitive) To succeed in persuading or inducing.

   I prevailed on him to wait.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

     Jones began to be very importunate with the lady to unmask; and at length having prevailed, there appeared not Mrs Fitzpatrick, but the Lady Bellaston herself.

5. (transitive, obsolete) To avail.

• prevalence
• prevalent

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “prevail”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “prevail”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• pervial