2 words pinned here
Waterloo
50.7094°N 4.4045°E · Q31579578
2 English words in this atlas trace back to Waterloo. It sits in Belgium.
Waterloonoun · 19th century
Well attestedA crushing loss is named for a ridge south of Brussels.
Napoleon’s defeat near Waterloo in 1815 made the village name a byword for a final fall. English then used meet one’s Waterloo for any decisive undoing.
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meet one's Waterlooverb · 19th century
Well attestedAlmost none of the battle of Waterloo was fought at Waterloo.
Wellington wrote his victory dispatch from the village of Waterloo in June 1815, and British practice named the battle after his headquarters rather than the slopes at Mont-Saint-Jean where the fighting actually happened. The idiom spread in American English within a few decades of the battle.
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