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Saturday, 25 July 2015

Word of the day,"Waterloo"

 Way back in my secondary school days,i became fascinated with the word, "waterloo",because of it's historical antecedence .

Now,let's trace both the dictionary meaning and the etymology of waterloo.

(1)Dictionary meaning; A brutal and final defeat of an individual --It is usually written in phrase,"to meet one's waterloo". Sentence example;the notorious Enugu robber,popularly known as Bado Clifford finally met his waterloo yesterday in a gun duel with the security operatives;meaning that he finally met his defeat or probably  death in the gun battle.

(2)Historical Background; Waterloo is a town  in central Belgium where in 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte  met his final defeat. Napoloen Bornaparte was the first French Consul/emperor who through some strategic political manoeuvring and coup de'etat rose to such a position. He ruled from 1799 (his accession to power marking the historical end of the French revolution), to June 22nd 1815.Before he met his defeat at Waterloo,Napoleon had fought  countless number of wars and defeated a lot of coalition forces and reigned almost throughout the whole Europe,conquering countries like;Austria,Prusia,Egypt,Spain including Russia after which in Aprail 1814 a coalition of Prussian,Russian and Austrians forces defeated Napoloen and was exiled to the Island of Elba .Meanwhile, the veteran/skilled strategist escaped from the island of Elba in February 1815 to rule France again only to be met with another fierce coalition forces that defeated him on the battle Waterloo in June 1815 in the then Belguim.

So,from the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo originated the phrase,"to meet one's waterloo"