Other forms: conquered, conquering, conquers
To conquer is to defeat and take control. Conquer a country, conquer your fear, divide and conquer.
The military sense is the literal one — the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror. The figurative sense is about overcoming difficulty within yourself: conquer a fear, conquer the mountain, conquer the habit. Divide and conquer is the old strategy of setting opponents against each other, and in computing it names an algorithm design. Note conquest, conqueror, and that conquer takes a direct object and never a preposition.
1verbconquerTo defeat and take control of a place.
“The Romans conquered Britain in the first century.”
2verbovercomeTo overcome a difficulty or fear.
“She conquered a fear of flying at about fifty.”
conquer is a defeating.
Latin conquirere meant to search out or procure — con-, thoroughly, plus quaerere, to seek. The same quaerere gives query, inquire and question, so conquering began as thorough seeking rather than defeating.
Latin
conquaero — to knock, strike; to search for, procure
Old French
conquerre
Middle English
conqueren
English, today
conquer
Built from
From Middle English conqueren, from Old French conquerre, from Latin conquaero (“to knock, strike; to search for, procure”), from Latin con- + quaero (“to seek, acquire”). Displaced native oferwinnan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA