Advertisement
🇨🇳Chinese Source WordCode: ZH

皮洛士式胜利

Pronunciation / Transliteration: pí luò shì shì shènglì

🇬🇧 Direct English Meaning:
Pyrrhic victory/ˈpɪr.ɪk ˈvɪk.tɚ.i/
nounCEFR C2 (Proficient)Top #8500 frequency
Full Thesaurus
🇨🇳 Example Sentence in Chinese:

"这场代价高昂的诉讼最终只是一场皮洛士式胜利。"

Comprehensive Definitions & Senses

2 senses
As noun
  1. 1

    A victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is equivalent to defeat.

    "Winning the lengthy patent lawsuit was a pyrrhic victory because the legal fees bankrupted the company."
  2. 2

    An achievement won at too great a cost.

    "Securing the promotion required sacrificing his health and family life, making it a truly pyrrhic victory."
Advertisement

Thesaurus & Semantic Spectrum

Antonyms & Contrasting Words (1)

Linguistic Origin & Historical Etymology

Derived from the ancient Greek general Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at the Battle of Asculum in 279 BCE. Upon winning, he reportedly stated that another such victory would utterly ruin him, giving rise to the idiom for a ruinous success.

Quick Vocabulary Retention Check

Which of the following is the closest synonym for "Pyrrhic victory"?

Advertisement

10 Global Lexicons: How "Pyrrhic victory" is said worldwide

Click any language below to open its dedicated Language to English dictionary page with native script & transliteration

Thesaurus & Synonyms Graph

Explore Nuanced Synonyms for "Pyrrhic victory"

Discover exact matches, context-specific alternatives, and antonyms with intensity ratings in the VocabDictionary Thesaurus.

View "Pyrrhic victory" Synonym Map
Advertisement