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View synonyms for meet one's Waterloo

meet one's Waterloo

  1. To encounter one's ultimate obstacle and to be defeated by it: “After beating dozens of challengers, the champion finally met his Waterloo.” From the Battle of Waterloo , where Napoleon Bonaparte was finally defeated.


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Idioms and Phrases

Suffer a major defeat, as in Our team's done well this season but is about to meet its Waterloo . This term alludes to Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, Belgium, in 1815, marking the end of his military domination of Europe. It was being transferred to other kinds of defeat by the mid-1800s.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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