but if you're going by a definition by which nearly anyone who has fought in a war on any side has lost, you're being misleading and abusing your words.

The mere fact that you, personally, dislike the contextual definition I am using does not make that context nor the definition illegitimate.

If you suffer far lesser consequences than if your opponent were victorious, you didn't lose.

You didn't lose ... as much as you could have. You still lost. If you do not gain at least as much as is taken from you, that is a loss. If you gamble twenty dollars and win a five dollar pot; you have won your wager but have lost fifteen dollars. Did you lose as much as you could have had you lost the wager altogether? No. But you still are down in real terms; you have still lost compared to before the wager.

There is absolutely nothing misleading about this. There is nothing abusive of the words about this. It's a simple factual and literal use of the term "to lose". It really doesn't matter if you were forced into the wager; you have still lost.

This is a legitimate usage of the term, "to lose", and I really don't see why you're so vehemently opposed to it.