Word.ws English Dictionary

prevailed

Syllables: pre·vailed/pɹɪˈveɪld/

prevailed is the simple past and past participle of prevail.

Meaning of prevail

Verb

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.
  2. (intransitive) To triumph; to be victorious.
    • 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.2019 January 14, “Exploring the SCP Foundation: SCP-2935 - O, Death” (0:36 from the start), in The Exploring Series, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2023
  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, often) To succeed in persuading or inducing.
    • I prevailed on him to wait.
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To avail.

Phrases with prevailed

Questions about prevailed

What is prevailed the simple past and past participle of?
Prevailed is the simple past and past participle of prevail.
How do you pronounce prevailed?
Prevailed is pronounced /pɹɪˈveɪld/.

Words near prevailed in the dictionary

  1. prevail upon
  2. prevail'd
  3. prevailance
  4. prevailancy
  5. prevaile
  6. prevailed
  7. prevailed upon
  8. prevailency
  9. prevailent
  10. prevailer
  11. prevailers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prevailed (page history and authors); prevail (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-prevailed.ogg.

Cite this entry: “prevailed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prevailed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.