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Subdue   /səbdˈu/   Listen
verb
Subdue  v. t.  (past & past part. subdued; pres. part. subduing)  
1.
To bring under; to conquer by force or the exertion of superior power, and bring into permanent subjection; to reduce under dominion; to vanquish. "I will subdue all thine enemies."
2.
To overpower so as to disable from further resistance; to crush. "Nothing could have subdued nature To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters." "If aught... were worthy to subdue The soul of man."
3.
To destroy the force of; to overcome; as, medicines subdue a fever.
4.
To render submissive; to bring under command; to reduce to mildness or obedience; to tame; as, to subdue a stubborn child; to subdue the temper or passions.
5.
To overcome, as by persuasion or other mild means; as, to subdue opposition by argument or entreaties.
6.
To reduce to tenderness; to melt; to soften; as, to subdue ferocity by tears.
7.
To make mellow; to break, as land; also, to destroy, as weeds.
8.
To reduce the intensity or degree of; to tone down; to soften; as, to subdue the brilliancy of colors.
Synonyms: To conquer; overpower; overcome; surmount; vanquish. See Conquer.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Subdue" Quotes from Famous Books



... catastrophe I am little able to bear. Resignation is a principal duty in my system of religion: reason shows that it ought to be willing if not cheerful; but there are passions and habitudes in human nature which reason cannot entirely subdue. I should be ashamed not to feel them in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... rock of my last hope is shiver'd, And its fragments are sunk in the wave, Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd To pain—it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn— They may torture, but shall not subdue me— 'Tis of thee that I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the evil?—It is manifest that, though a great army may easily defeat or disperse another army, less or greater, yet it is not in a like degree formidable to a determined people, nor efficient in a like degree to subdue them, or to keep them in subjugation—much less if this people, like those of Spain in the present instance, be numerous, and, like them, inhabit a territory extensive and strong by nature. For a great army, and even several great armies, cannot accomplish ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... people would observe the obvious occasions of silence, if they would subdue the inclination to tale-bearing, and that eager desire to engage attention, which is an original disease in some minds, they would be in little danger of offending with their tongue; and would, in a moral and religious sense, have due government ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... who is standing up for the old gods of his fathers. No remark is made about this picturesque failure of civilisation; but there it stands, as an unworded suggestion that civilisation, even when Christianised, was not able wholly to subdue the natural man in that old day—just as in our day the spectacle of a shipwrecked French crew clubbing women and children who tried to climb into the lifeboats suggests that civilisation has not succeeded in entirely obliterating the natural man even yet. Common sailors a year ago, in Paris, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain


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