defeat means to cause someone else to lose (to not win). What you are seeing is the use of 'beat', which is used 98% of the time instead of saying "defeat" (even on TV newscasts, where it is probably used more like 70-80% of the time, depending on the 'formality' of the news). We almost always say 'beat'. The past tense for "beat" is "beat". (example: I will beat you today, just like I beat you yesterday) So, it's much quicker to say "The Yankees beat the Mets" instead of "The Yankees defeated the Mets" BTW - In the dictionary, "beat" has many meanings (kind of like your verb, "daraba"). Whereas defeat only has one meaning.