How would you use the word eclipsed in a metaphorical sense?
I saw a piece in the sports pages of a newspaper today that used it wrongly in my view. I feel it means "greatly overshadowed" or similar. It does not mean just "beaten", etc.
Talking about a football club's results at their home ground, the article said that they had only lost one game, which record was eclipsed only by Chelsea [who had lost none].
Surely eclipsed is too strong a word in this context?
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I'd agree.Eclipsed seems a very odd choice of word there. For me the implication of one thing metaphorically eclipsing another is that the eclipsed thing is made insignificant by the comparison.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
I haven't used the term that often, but AHD states that one definition is: "To surpass; outshine: an outstanding performance that eclipsed the previous record." Could they have appropriately used it to mean "outshined by"?
No, you are right, Arnie. But I would say that they had "surpassed" them. Here is where I find dictionaries confusing. Which definitions are appropriate to use?
