Word: pyrrhic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...period. The U-boats had shied away, but they might return at any time. The convoy system was reaching southward through the Caribbean toward the South Atlantic, but in those areas and in the mid-Atlantic, sinkings of unconvoyed ships were still high. Moreover, convoying at best achieves a Pyrrhic advantage: convoys sacrifice efficiency for safety. The ships make fewer and slower trips, lose time at each end of their runs waiting for the next convoy to assemble...
Pressure in the North. Although the Germans' main blow fell south of Moscow, their summer strategy, as it unfolded, embraced the whole Russian front. Near Borodino, where Napoleon won a Pyrrhic victory, Nazi artillery and infantry made just enough of a gesture to pin down the Red forces defending the capital to keep them from relieving Timoshenko. Then, on the Kalinin front northwest of Moscow, the Germans began still another drive. It was geared for speed: fleets of Luftwaffe transports swarmed into rear-line fields to supply the mobile Nazi forces. This served immediately to divert the Red Army...
Last week they lost Hong Kong and Wake. Brilliantly defended Wake was a Pyrrhic victory for the Japs, but none the less a loss to the democracies...
...elder brother Davy got very busy forming a union more radical than his father would have to do with; later on a terrible five-month strike ended with many children dead, its Pyrrhic victory a minimum wage below what had been paid before. And subtly, implacably, the slag heaps enlarged upon the valley, to that day when the tipping piers were set tall above the dwellings of the miners themselves, and the grim end was plain in sight...