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Overpower   Listen
verb
Overpower  v. t.  (past & past part. overpowered; pres. part. overpowering)  To excel or exceed in power; to cause to yield by superior power; to vanquish; to subdue; as, the light overpowers the eyes. "And overpower'd that gallant few."
Synonyms: To overbear; overcome; vanquish; defeat; crush; overwhelm; overthrow; rout; conquer; subdue.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overpower" Quotes from Famous Books



... to overpower him, and he lay moaning most piteously for a length of time. Then the wilder phases of a distempered mind came on, and he again resumed his ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison

... fighting qualities, it was clear that so small an army as England could spare could not permanently keep down so vast a country if the people were determined upon independence. They might win every battle,—might overpower every considerable force gathered against them,—but they could only enforce the king's authority over a mere fractional portion of so great an area. England, however, was unaccustomed to defeat; her spirit in those days was proud and high; and by a large majority ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... was really too much overwhelmed to feel elated. "Upon my word, you overpower me, my dear marquis—you quite ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... Not very much destruction was accomplished on either side, however. Occasionally a stray bullet would carry off one of our men in his sleep. Sometimes these naked savages would stealthily creep in upon our sentries and with their sharp knives would overpower them and mutilate them in ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... singly to attack a deer or antelope. They live and rear their young in burrows, which they fix near some pass or spot much frequented by game, and sally out in a body against any animal which they think they can overpower, but on the slightest alarm retreat to their burrows making a noise exactly like ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... higher temperature of the primeval times is attributed to the greater proximity or intensity of the globe's internal heat, and which, poured through cracks and fissures of the lately concreted crust, M. BRONGNIART supposes to have been sufficiently great to overpower the ordinary meteorological influences and spread a tropical climate all over ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous

... the same time: so that two sensations never act with the same force at the same instant; the stronger generally overcoming the weaker. The mind, however, can attend to the weaker sensation, in such a manner, as to overpower the stronger, ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... earth in baskets; They threw it with shouts into the frames; They beat it with responsive blows. They pared the walls repeatedly, till they sounded strong. Five thousand cubits of them arose together, So that the roll of the great drums did not overpower (the noise ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... to be thus alone with two prisoners, one of whom is on horseback? If we were to try, I think we could overpower you. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... indifference of the mass, or their disposition to let the combatants fight out the matter among themselves, and then to submit to the victor. Nothing was more likely to encourage aggression on the part of an ambitious malcontent, than the conviction that if he could once overpower the small amount of physical force which surrounded the archons, and exhibit himself in armed possession of the Prytaneum or the Acropolis, he might immediately count upon passive submission on the part of all the freemen without. Under the state of feeling ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... endeavour, by systematic military means, such as batteries, trenches, mines, &c., to overpower the defences of a place ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... to overpower. Well might the abettors of Antichrist wonder at the Christian's support under the most cruel tortures. While "looking unto Jesus" and the bright visions of eternal glory, like Stephen, he can pray of his enemies, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... them to fight in self-defence and they'd fight to defend me. God knows there are better men than we are that would be killed right and left if we stayed, and 'twould be no use, for the Gentile numbers would overpower us. 'Tain't no use. When I found to-day that there wasn't a chance of staving off the bankruptcy I sent Emmar and the children and Rigdon's folks off in a close waggon after sundown. Rigdon's rid off by another road, and I've got my horse ready and ought to be gone. And ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... express myself properly, I know not; he only would know, who did these things. For no language can describe how it happened that his hand did not become torpid, that the strength of his nerves did not relax, that the affecting sight of his son did not overpower him. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... exerted all his art to draw the Russian into a general action: the resistance he had met with had surprised and enraged him, and he was eager to overpower and extinguish Bennigsen before further supplies of these hardy Muscovities should come up to swell his ranks. The Russian general was on the eastern bank of the Aller, opposite to the town of Friedland, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... in any relation, and on all occasions, eminently amiable; but when they are found in an adversary, and found so prevalent as to overpower that zeal which his cause excites, and that heat which naturally increases in the prosecution of argument, and which may be, in a great measure, justified by the love of truth, they certainly appear with particular advantages; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... sprang forth from it the loveliest flowers. They yielded so strong a perfume that the king commanded that the mice who stood nearest the chimney should stick their tails in the fire, in order that the smell of the singed hair should overpower the odour from the flowers, which was ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... muscles had been hardened by a year of toil he doubted whether he had sufficient physical strength to make absolutely sure of his man; a single cry, the sound of a scuffle, might be fatal. The Gujarati, on the other hand, a man of great bulk, could be trusted to overpower the victim by sheer weight, and with his iron clutch to insure that no sound came from him. Desmond's only fear indeed was that the man, as in the case of the sentinel on the bastion, might overdo his part and give him all ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... become good, to remain in a good state and be good, as you, Pittacus, affirm, is not possible, and is not granted to man; God only has this blessing; 'but man cannot help being bad when the force of circumstances overpowers him.' Now whom does the force of circumstance overpower in the command of a vessel?—not the private individual, for he is always overpowered; and as one who is already prostrate cannot be overthrown, and only he who is standing upright but not he who is prostrate can be laid prostrate, so the force of circumstances can only overpower him ...
— Protagoras • Plato

... of them distinguished by much that is decent, and respectable, and worthy of approbation in the eye of man. In a fourth, the ruling motive may be the desire of esteem and approbation; and this may, and often does, become a principle of such influence, as to overpower, in a great measure, the selfish propensities, and to produce a character estimable not only for justice and veracity, but a high degree of active benevolence. Such a man sacrifices to his ruling passion much that might be turned to the purposes of ambition, ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... staid, and hesitated for a moment whether he should blow out his brains, and try to accomplish the queen's deliverance by force; but a little reflection showed him that the noise of fire-arms would bring up a crowd of enemies beyond his ability to overpower, and it soon appeared that it would tax all his resources to secure his own escape. He achieved that, hoping still to find some other opportunity of being useful to his royal mistress; but none offered. The Assembly did him the honor to set ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... time passed thus, she kneeling motionless, holding him, while he panted against her breast, struggling with dogged persistence to master the weakness that threatened to overpower him. It was terrible to see him so, he the arrogant, the fierce, the overbearing, thus humbled to the earth before her. She felt the agony of his crushed pride, and yearned with an intensity that was passionate to alleviate ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... when the brave O'Neill and his handful of troops fell down the river from Fort Erie on the night of the first of June, to go into camp at Newbiggin's Farm, preparations were being made by the British not only to overpower him with superior numbers but to cut off his retreat upon the American shore and capture his whole command. In view of this, troops were being despatched against him from all points; while the tug Robb, black with artillery ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... their Greek subjects were only kept under by main force, still held to their own Greek Church, and looked to the Roman Emperor of the East, as they called the Palaeologus at Constantinople, as their head; nor was it easy to overpower people who had so many mountain fastnesses, nor to tame monks whose convents were nests on the top of rocks, some so steep that there was no way of entering them save being drawn up in a basket. Well was it for them that they had ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Half way up there seemed to be stretched a par-fleche (raw-hide), from which a dim light emanated. He still thought of Oglugechana, who dwells within a hollow tree, and determined to surprise and if possible to overpower ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... long day for me. I was ill and tired. Suddenly sleep began to overpower me. I batted my eyes to keep them open. I tried looking at the crystal lights, but my leaden eyes could not face them. The constant drone of that old woman was putting me to sleep. I tried to say a few words now and then to wake myself. I felt myself slipping. Once my head dropped and ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown

... conveyed down the side of the mountain in a curious manner. Each cask is fixed upon a light sledge with two wheels, and a man, who is well used to the precipitous path, walks down in front of the sledge, taking care that it does not acquire momentum enough to overpower him. When the cask has been thus guided safely to the bottom, the man carries the sledge up hill upon his shoulders, and prepares ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... a few more years pass over the heart, and when once broken, if it be only by a slight suspicion, or a half unreal cause, it will scarce revive again in a life-time; nor then, unless proofs the strongest and most unquestionable can be adduced to overpower the doubts which have well-nigh ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... of Independence and Anabaptism, of divine right and republicanism, stood opposed to one another. Suddenly, almost like a dream, the wave of a new and over-mastering impulse had risen and submerged them all. For the moment it was strong and deep enough to overpower all other currents. On its smooth surface, Charles had floated back to the throne. But the favouring wave had only covered for a time—it had not swept away—the rocks underneath. These were soon to be ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... any, publicity in the matter, and is inspired with the less fear of detection. There are some few hotel-keepers who, though they more than suspect the purpose to which the liquor these whites are demanding is to be applied, permit rapacity to overpower righteous compunction or scruple, and lend themselves, likewise, though indirectly, to the law's infraction. Happily, the penalty is now so heavy ($300) that the evil is, I think, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... the general awe in which the wolf is held by their neighbours, dress themselves up in the skins of that beast, and prowling about lonely, isolated spots at night, pounce upon those people they can most easily overpower. Rumours (most probably started by the murderers themselves) speedily get in circulation that the mangled and half-eaten remains of the villagers are attributable to creatures, half human and half wolf, that have been seen gliding about certain ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... visit Concord and rest awhile from the strain of his solitary studies in the Sierra Nevada. But nothing could dislodge him from the glacial problems of the high Sierra; with passionate interest he kept at his task. "The grandeur of these forces and their glorious results," he once wrote, "overpower me and inhabit my whole being. Waking or sleeping, I have no rest. In dreams I read blurred sheets of glacial writing, or follow lines of cleavage, or struggle with the ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... thus a grand alliance had been made among the tribes. The Baris desired to make friends with their powerful enemy, the Loquia: they accordingly invited this tribe to form an alliance and to join in a combined attack upon Gondokoro, by which means they hoped to overpower and destroy our force, and to become possessed of many thousand cattle which were now ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... musicians traversing the streets with guitars, flutes, tambourines, and the church choir, who were kept in the Setch to sing in church and glorify the deeds of the Zaporozhtzi. At length drunkenness and fatigue began to overpower even these strong heads, and here and there a Cossack could be seen to fall to the ground, embracing a comrade in fraternal fashion; whilst maudlin, and even weeping, the latter rolled upon the earth with him. Here a whole group would lie down ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... face crimson, and he panted aloud with hard animal sounds. The affair was as brief as it was hot and sudden. The potations which had swelled and bloated his carcase had already weakened the springs of energy. One more huge effort, that came near to overpower me, and in which the pistol happily exploded, and I felt his grasp slacken and weakness come on his joints; his legs succumbed under his weight, and he grovelled on his knees on the stone floor. "Spare me!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... prostitute or of known immoral character, to have unlawful carnal connection, either with himself or with any other person, or applies, administers to, or causes to be taken by any woman or girl any drug, matter or thing with intent to stupefy or overpower so as thereby to enable himself or any other person to have unlawful carnal connection with such woman or girl, or, being above the age of eighteen years, shall by any means whatsoever procure or induce any girl under ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... be hated, and bravery which cannot be despised, retains too much of the spectator's kindness. It was in the power of Richardson alone to teach us at once esteem and detestation, to make virtuous resentment overpower all the benevolence which wit, elegance, and courage, naturally excite; and to lose at last the hero in the villain. The fifth act is not equal to the former; the events of the drama are exhausted, and little remains but to talk of what is past. It has been observed ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... to show himself to the rest of the passengers. I don't know for the life of me what he was angry about, but his face wore a perpetual frown of indignation, scorn, and contempt; his black brows were constitutionally knit; his eyes seemed to be always trying to overpower and knock somebody under; his lips were firmly compressed, and his mustaches stood out like a dagger on each side, with the handles wrapped in a bundle of dirty hair under his nose. So tight was his uniform ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... possible peacemaker is a dead man, ever since by the sublime religious story a dead man only could reconcile heaven and earth. In a certain sense we always feel the past ages as human, and our own age as strangely and even weirdly dehumanised. In our own time the details overpower us; men's badges and buttons seem to grow larger and larger as in a horrible dream. To study humanity in the present is like studying a mountain with a magnifying glass; to study it in the past is like ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... That had been spoken without any sort of fear of detection, without the least suspicion that she would have no choice in the matter of giving up her ill-gotten wealth. What he dreaded unutterably was the despair that must overpower her as he developed the long chain of evidence against her. As he came into her presence, overwhelmed with these thoughts, he was also anxiously recalling two mental notes. He must make her clearly understand that he had not betrayed her by one word or hint to Sir Edmund Grosse or any living ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... overseer kept them from open mutiny. At last, finding the overseer alone one day, and for once unarmed, two or three of the worst convicts set upon him, and would have murdered him, if Repton had not stood by him and helped him till assistance came to overpower the mutineers. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... and their king and most of his train, who were then in that house, fell victims to their fury, every creature of them being either smothered or burnt. All this while they never fired a gun, lest the people should awaken faster than they could overpower them. But the fire awakened them fast enough, which obliged our fellows to keep together in bodies. By this time the whole town was in a flame, yet their fury rather increased, calling out to one another to remember Tom Jeffery. The terrible light of this conflagration made me very uneasy, and ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... made such a tremendous wash that in a moment the sea was as rough as if there had been a storm. The bathers felt themselves tossed about like corks, and struck out as hard as they could for the shore, trying to keep abreast of the waves that threatened to overpower them. The next moment there was a chorus of wild, agonized shrieks, and the little cockle-shell of a boat whirled rapidly past, upside down, the young man and one girl clinging desperately to it, with white, terror-stricken faces. The other girl was nowhere to be seen. She rose in a few seconds, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... influence on European constitutions. In three days twelve men were on the sick-list; the natives, as they saw the strength of the expedition decline, became more bold and frequent in their predatory attacks. At Gambia attempts were made to overpower by main force the whole party, and seize all they possessed; but, by merely presenting their muskets, the assault was repelled without bloodshed. At Mania Korro the whole population hung on their rear for a considerable time, headed by ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... another till he reached the Caspian Sea, and then went on beyond that sea for thirty or forty days more. In one place the party came to a tract of low black land, which exhaled an odor so offensive that they were obliged to use perfumes all the way to overpower the noxious smells. They were ten days in crossing this fetid territory. After this they went on a month longer through a desert country, and at length came to a fertile land which was covered with the ruins of cities that the people of Gog and ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... the grasshoppers stopped in turn. "Let us rest," said they; "the heat will overpower us if we struggle against the noonday sun. It is so pleasant to live in sweet repose! Come, Graceful, we will divert you and you ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... of imagery, magnificence of language, and vehemence of argument, which nothing can withstand, he announces the sublime truths of the Christian religion, and the sublime evidence that supports them, with a grandeur and force that overpower and disarm resistance. Something of this is to be found in many passages of his sermons; but, in general, both the language and the arguments of them are forced and unnatural. His letters to the nuns are very interesting. Let those who affect to talk slightingly of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... he would have had to overpower Foster, for which he had not the physical strength, while any noise they made in the struggle might have brought in help. Then supposing that Graham had by some chance mastered him, he would not have gained much, because Foster would have gone to the police when ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... shade the lazy oar. Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs, And amourous music on the water dies. 115 Heedless how Pliny, musing here, survey'd Old Roman boats and figures thro' the shade, Pale Passion, overpower'd, retires and woos The thicket, where th' unlisten'd ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... had, in course of time, to be drawn from the mainland. But it was not feasible, from the nature of tribal condition, to extend thither by colonization. The soil was held there by other tribes, whom the Mexicans might well overpower and render tributary, but whom they could not incorporate, since the kinships composing these tribes could not be fused with their own. Outposts, however, were established on the shores, at the outlets of the dykes, at Tepeyacac on the north, at Iztapalapan, Mexicaltzinco, and at ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... they can be brought together! And to that end, seeing how few there are upon any one plantation, upon the day when they rise, they must raise with them servants and slaves. Then will they overpower masters and overseers, and gathering to one point, form there a force which will beat down all opposition. It is simple enough. We will but do that which it was proposed to do ten years ago. You know the instructions given by the Parliament to ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... behind them, fann'd in air. A little over us one took his stand, The other lighted on the' Opposing hill, So that the troop were in the midst contain'd. Well I descried the whiteness on their heads; But in their visages the dazzled eye Was lost, as faculty that by too much Is overpower'd. "From Mary's bosom both Are come," exclaim'd Sordello, "as a guard Over the vale, ganst him, who hither tends, The serpent." Whence, not knowing by which path He came, I turn'd me round, and closely press'd, All frozen, to my leader's trusted side. Sordello paus'd not: "To ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... need say no more. I myself will watch to-night and when the thief appears I will overpower him and bring ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore

... fascinations seemed to overpower him, and before he quite realized it, Iris had become part and parcel of ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... overcharged with surfeiting. And Paul, 1 Cor. 9, 27: I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, etc. And these exercises are to be undertaken not because they are services that justify, but in order to curb the flesh, lest satiety may overpower us, and render us secure and indifferent, the result of which is that men indulge and obey the dispositions of the flesh. This diligence ought to be perpetual, because it has the perpetual command of God. And this prescribed form of certain meats and times ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... the principles of solar chemistry. Owing to the scattering of light by matter floating mechanically in the earth's atmosphere, the sun is seen not sharply defined, but surrounded by a luminous glare. Now, a loud noise will drown a whisper, an intense light will overpower a feeble one, and so this circumsolar glare prevents us from seeing many striking appearances round the border of the sun. The glare is abolished in total eclipses, when the moon comes between the earth and the sun, and there are then seen a series of rose-coloured protuberances, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... altogether. The doctors, with the old miserable folly of looking at one bit of a subject, take the patient's lungs and the Undercliff's air, and settle solemnly that they are fit for each other. But the whole influence of the place, never taken into consideration, is to reduce and overpower vitality. I am quite confident that I should go down under it, as if it were so much lead, slowly crushing me. An American resident in Paris many years, who brought me a letter from Olliffe, said, the day before yesterday, that he had always had a passion for the sea ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... affrighted; yet considering what I had lately heard made out by Mr. Mitchel at Cambridge, that there is more good in God than there is evil in sin, and that although God is the greatest good and sin the greatest evil, yet the first Being of evil cannot weave the scales or overpower the first Being of good: so considering that the authour of good was of greater power than the authour of evil, God was pleased of his goodness to keep me from being out ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... have a green Cloth hanging near them, to ease the Eye upon, after too great an Application to their Colouring. A famous modern Philosopher [2] accounts for it in the following manner: All Colours that are more luminous, overpower and dissipate the animal Spirits which are employd in Sight; on the contrary, those that are more obscure do not give the animal Spirits a sufficient Exercise; whereas the Rays that produce in us the Idea of Green, fall upon ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... movement, which gave to all their exertions a bewitching air of freedom and negligence. and made even their last efforts seem only the exuberances or flowering-off of a mind capable of higher excellencies, but unambitious to attain them. There was nothing to alarm or overpower. On whatever topic she touched, trivial or severe, it was alike en badinant; but in the midst of this sportiveness, her genius poured itself forth in a thousand delightful fancies, and scattered new graces and ornaments on every object within its sphere. In its wanderings from the trifles of the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... until we get close to the fort, and then crawl along in the water course, and take our chances. If we should find it so blocked up that we can't get through, we must then see how we can get past the place in some other way. If the gate is only barred, no doubt we should be able to overpower the sentry, and get the gate open before any alarm is given. If it is locked, we must do the best we can. We may calculate upon taking the sentry by surprise, as we did in the prison, and on silencing him at once; then we should have time to break up ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... perfection of the womanly art of self-pretense is when she subtly wills the young man to overpower her and is so carried away by her own success that she forgets who started it. She droops, swoons, shivers before the fury of her own inspiration, and cries out, with absolute sincerity: "How dare you! How could you! What ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... we ascend, is enough to overpower a lover of beauty. There is nothing equal to it for space and breadth and majesty. Monte Rosa, the masses of Mont Blanc blent with the Grand Paradis, the airy pyramid of Monte Viso, these are the battlements of that vast Alpine rampart, in which the vale of Susa opens like ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... rebellion against the effort to repress them. I put my arm round the neck of the poor young thing and stooping down kissed her wet cheek as a tear from my own eye mingled with her profuse weeping. The evidence of feeling appeared to overpower her utterly; she buried her head in my lap, and lay long there sobbing like a child. When the acuteness of the emotion had somewhat spent itself I gently raised her up, and asked of her what was the cause of a grief so poignant. I found that I was now at last ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... meet my temporizing arguments by asseverations,—'So sure as my God liveth!' or by appeals to a higher authority,—'But what does my Lord tell me in Paul's Letter to the Philippians?' It was the prerogative of his faith to know, and of his character to overpower objection; between these two millstones I ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... Glavour's weapons? I'll have to try to catch him by surprise. When I open the door, run straight for the space ship as though you were trying to escape from me. Don't try to dodge the guard, keep right on for the ship. As soon as I overpower the guard, get in the ship and hold your hand on the starting lever. When I get on board, throw in the power at a low rate. We don't want to rise rapidly enough to get out of easy control. Do ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... in the full enjoyment of summer weather; there has been no cold for fully a fortnight, and I am getting better every day now. My cough has quite subsided, and the pain in the chest much diminished; if the heat does not overpower me I feel sure it will be very healing to my lungs. I sit out on my glorious balcony and drink the air from early morning till noon, when the sun comes upon it and drives me under cover. The thermometer ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... friends, like insects in a summer's day, Bask in the sunshine, but avoid the shower; Uncertain visitants, they flee away E'en when misfortune's cloud begins to lower. Into life's bitter cup true friendship drops Balsamic sweets to overpower the gall; True friends, like ivy and the wall it props, Both stand together, ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward

... skill and of feeling, of fervor, interest, and fascination. This whirlwind carried away the electors. Never had any man had such a triumph. But, unfortunately, speech, a weapon only for close warfare, has only an immediate effect. Reflection kills the word when the word ceases to overpower reflection. If the votes had then been taken, Albert's name would undoubtedly have come out of the ballot-box. At the moment, he was conqueror. But he must conquer ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... the group of labourers they had passed before, the colonel saw four Negroes, in response to an imperative gesture from the overseer, seize one of their number, a short, thickset fellow, overpower some small resistance which he seemed to make, throw him down with his face to the ground, and sit upon his extremities while the overseer applied the broad leathern thong ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd, The weary to sleep, and the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... state when it cannot adapt itself to new conditions, perhaps it will give way to some other branch of the human race, which, gathering new strength or new vigor from sources not available to the Nordic, will be able to overpower it; but the development of science and art with the power over nature, is greater in this race than in any other, and the maladies which destroy racial life are less marked than in other races. It would seem, then, that it still ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... think I shall not err if I trust to your fidelity and consult you about the campaign. You, even more than I, are bound to see that the Assyrians do not overpower us. For myself, if I fail, there may well be some loophole of escape. But for you, if the king conquers, I see nothing but enmity on every side. [24] For, although he is my enemy, he bears me no malice, he only feels that it is against his interest for me ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... side, was wrestling with an autocratic governor, John Harvey. This avaricious tyrant sowed the wind until in 1635 he was like to reap the whirlwind. Though he was the King's Governor and in good odor in England, where rested the overpower to which Virginia must bow, yet in this year Virginia blew upon her courage until it was glowing and laid rude hands upon him. We read: "An Assembly to be called to receive complaints against Sr. John Harvey, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... way to overpower a troublesome idea or impulse or emotion is to reenforce the opposite idea by breaking open the paths for its motor expression. The effort to hold the counter-idea before consciousness may be unsuccessful ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... was pledged to cure himself, and believed he was succeeding; but, all the same, it was terrible to think that the temptation might overpower him at any moment, and that he might st agger helpless through the village—a very shocking ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... same moment a pistol flashed at my ear, and a report followed. This, however, produced no other effect than, for a short space, to overpower my senses. I staggered back, but did ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... tense moment. Bob and Hugh could feel their hearts hammering so that it seemed to the two boys the noise must be heard. Their faces were pale, and frankly they were frightened. Suppose the men in the room should outnumber them and overpower them? Certainly if they were the spies and plotters they sought, they would be desperate. Then again it was just possible that the men were peaceful citizens, and that the affair would turn out to be a farce; that ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt's companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was—Myles's heart thrilled and his blood boiled—to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears—a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... instinctively that it would be a useless proceeding for him to approach any human being for employment. He knew that even the freedom, which he realized through all his senses like an essential perfume, could not yet overpower the reek of the prison. As he walked through the clogging dust he thought of one after another whom he had known before he had gone out of the world of free men and had bent his back under the hand of the law. There were, of course, people in his little native village, people ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... was giving us this account, the armadillo, suddenly starting forward, ran off at a great rate into the forest, True made chase, but I called him back, and he came willingly, apparently convinced that he should be unable to overtake the creature, or overpower ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... immense elevations depress the inhabitant and preoccupy the traveller. There are many lakes under a more lustrous sky; but the healthy activities of life demand a scene brilliant without languor, and a beauty which can refresh and satisfy rather than lull or overpower. Without advancing any untenable claim to British pre-eminence in the matter of scenery, we may, perhaps, follow on both these points the judgment which Wordsworth has expressed in his Guide to the Lakes, a work which condenses the results of many ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... that I shall be able to prove to you that the thing lies in a region where it cannot have the power which you ascribe to it. In the cold zones a venomous bite does not operate as dangerously as in warmer ones; a sorrow in childhood cannot overpower us as it does in riper age. Whatever misfortune may have happened to you when a child, if in your wildness—you yourself say that you were wild—whatsoever you may have then done, it cannot, it ought not to influence your whole life: your understanding could tell you this better than I. ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... their march were true, had ever regarded the coming of the Spaniards with an evil eye. It was scarcely possible he should do otherwise. His soft messages had only been intended to decoy them across the mountains, where, with the aid of his warriors, he might readily overpower them. They were entangled in the toils which the cunning ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... Dusautoy and Tritton to set themselves to overpower his resistance. Gilbert's feeble remonstrances were treated as a jest, and Algernon, who could brook no opposition, swore that he would conquer the little prig. Maurice found himself pinioned by strong arms, but determined and spirited, he made a vigorous struggle, and so judiciously aimed a furious ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... aggravated rather than cooled by his unexpected confinement. It was as likely as not that he would use the weapon he carried upon the first person with whom he found himself face to face, especially if that person made any attempt to overpower and disarm him. ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... eyes eastward. Harry, keeping close beside her, observed her with anxious interest. Would the first beams of day overpower her feelings? All remained quiet, even Jack Ryan. A faint streak of pale rose tinted the light vapors of the horizon. It was the first ray of light attacking the laggards of the night. Beneath the hill lay the silent city, massed confusedly in the twilight of dawn. Here and there lights ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... nature of the Manchester and Stockport Rooms they were for instruction, and if the writer did not go farther, then indeed would the pamphlet be harmless. "Delay some time." "Have such meetings as those at Manchester and Stockport; be assured of your numbers, and you can overpower the Government." There could be no doubt that these passages were libelous. The next question was, whether the defendant had or had not published the libel? and it was in evidence that these copies were purchased at two different times. The jury were ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... soldiers, the route being changed on each occasion. It was accordingly arranged that he should choose to ride on a particular day in the direction of the sea-coast. At a certain spot the conspirators were to await him and his escort, overpower the latter, and carry Kossuth on board an American frigate which ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley

... and unless there be an energetic and watchful counter-action of the judgment (of which I have known more than one instance, in which the comparing and reflecting judgment has obstinately, though painfully, rejected the full testimony of the senses,) will finally overpower it. But when the organ is obliterated, or totally suspended, then the mind applies some other organ to a double use. Passing through Temple Sowerby, in Westmorland, some ten years back, I was shewn a man perfectly blind; and blind from his infancy. Fowell was his name. This man's chief amusement ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... really beginning to overpower me, but I refused to leave my sketch. Jack pinned a large white pocket-handkerchief to my shoulders—"to keep the sun from the spine"—and departed ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... to order my death, madam, your guards who have entered my court, and whose spurs and halberts I hear upon the staircase, may overpower my domestics; and, seeing no such escape as becomes my dignity, I submit to you. Behold my sword and gauntlet at your feet! Some formalities, I trust, will be used in the proceedings against me. Entitle me, in my attainder, not John of Gaunt, not Duke of Lancaster, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... would have been glad to give some word of encouragement to Matt for he still remembered the good turn of the day before. But his business was to watch over the horses. It would never do to betray their hiding place to these desperate men who might overpower him and be off before the ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo

... smiled at himself, but outwardly he drew up his tall, sinewy frame to its full height, and cast a hypnotizing stare at the man before him, now slowly recovering his usual sober frame of mind. And as the sense of his wrong-doing began to overpower poor Pommer, he bowed his towzled head in misery. Two big tears crept slowly ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... than to simply overpower the suspect. Why not make him a hostage for the good behavior of his associates? The idea seized hold of the boy, and in that instant he determined to put ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... strayed," said Laura faintly. All her will was struggling with this swimming brain—it should not overpower her. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... heard. The plan he at once formed was to rush out on them, seize and bind them, and hold them as hostages till Margery should be given up; for it did not occur to him that a young lad like himself and a one-armed man were scarcely likely to overpower two stout, hardy ruffians like those before him. He drew Tom back a little distance where it was safe to speak, and asked him if he would make the attempt. The old sailor was ready for anything. It would certainly be a grand matter to capture the leaders of the ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston

... Cadiz unseen by Lord Keith's squadron, in hazy weather, and entered the Mediterranean. It was said to consist of twenty-four sail of the line, six frigates, and three sloops. The object of the French was to liberate the Spanish fleet, form a junction with them, act against Minorca and Sicily, and overpower our naval force in the Mediterranean, by falling in with detached squadrons, and thus destroying it in detail. When they arrived off Carthagena, they requested the Spanish ships to make sail and join; but the Spaniards replied they ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... I shall make her of my liberty; and from all her sex honours next to divine, for giving a proof, 'that there was once a woman whose virtue no trials, no stratagems, no temptations, even from the man she hated not, could overpower.' ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... Father Messasebe, "the world has ever had. And whether gentle overpower barbarian, or barbarian in turn overcast the gentle, always there will be a wilderness, and out of ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough



Words linked to "Overpower" :   knock out, overcome, crush, fire, benight, arouse, lock, clutch, overmaster, steamroller, enkindle, get hold of, seize, kill, shell, vanquish, steamroll, beat out, stagger, beat, raise, kindle



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