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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 use summary measures, and ordered twelve grenadiers, with fixed bayonets, to advance to the cabin door, break it open, and overpower the Englishman. ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... lay her safety, and kept her fully employed, so much so, indeed, that from sheer lack of time she was able to stave off the faintness which had threatened to overpower her. After a time her father came to himself, and Erica's face, which had been the last in his mind in full consciousness, was the first which now presented itself to his ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... alike shouting. It had been arranged that, while the French held their way straight on, shooting down the Spaniards as they poured out into the street, the British should break up into small detachments, burst their way into the houses, and overpower the enemy there. They found the first houses they entered deserted, and the soldiers uttered exclamations of impatience as they heard the heavy roll of firing in the main street. As they approached the centre of the village, however, they came upon a ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... that the charge should be sufficiently strong to modify or overpower the electricity already existing in the plant, in order to change the form which this would otherwise take; but, at the same time, care is taken that the charge is not too powerful, for in that case, and particularly if an antipathetic electricity be employed, ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... 43 "Quail"; 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, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... and views her child again. Sweet Innocent! It smiles at this Distress, And fondly draws this final Comfort from me: Dear Babe, no more: Dear Tommy too must die, [Looking at her other child. Oh, my sweet First-born! Oh, I'm overpower'd. [Pausing. ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... give ourselves up to reflection, some little mitigation of the afflictions we experience; and yet of the evils which come upon us, some are often so heavy as to overpower the sources of consolation for a time, and to leave us wretched. This was nearly our situation at the close of the last session of parliament. It would be idle not to confess that circumstances had occurred which wounded us deeply. Though we had foiled our opponents ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... 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 ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... 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

... I liked this proposal. We saw that, in the event of a rupture in the negotiation (a thing we more than half anticipated), even should our party overpower the other, we could gain nothing. Before we could reach the Navajo captives, up the steep hill, the two guards would hurry them off; or (we dreaded to think of it) butcher them on the ground! ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... What nonsense!" exclaimed Dr. Park. "Why, it would be more than you or I could do to overpower and hang a man weighing one hundred and ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... depending for our food on fruits and roots, and the produce of the chase. The forest too is full of dangers, and abounds with reptiles and beasts of prey. It appeareth to me that ye will certainly have to suffer much privation and misery there. The sufferings of the Brahmanas might overpower even the gods. That they would overwhelm me is too certain. Therefore, O Brahmana, go ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... unhappy, let whatsoever disasters there will happen to him, if he doth not fall beyond his sence so far as to take a Wife. Those troubles that may befall us otherwise, are alwaies of so small a strength! that he who hath but the least magnanimity may easily overpower them. But the Tortures of Marriage are such a burthen, that I never saw no man, let him be as couragious as he would, which it hath not brought under the yoke of her Tyranny. Marry then, you shall have a thousand vexations, a thousand torments, a thousand ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... and screaming hoarsely at times; at other times hopping and bobbing silently along, picking himself up grimly and patiently when he fell, or rubbing his eyes with his hand when the giddiness threatened to overpower him. ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London

... confidence, while one only was to be intrusted with the secret. Others of his friends were secretly to resort to an appointed rendezvous with fresh horses, and all well armed and in sufficient numbers to overpower the guard placed about his person. Henry was to press on in the chase with the utmost eagerness until the horses of the guard were completely exhausted, when his friends with the fresh steeds were to appear, rescue him from the guards, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... Isaac by the arm after the professional manner. The young man flung off the touch. For an instant his eyes swept the station menacingly. What if he should exert his strength! There were two—three—four officers in the room. He might even overpower these, and dash for liberty. He saw the livid reflection of electric lights through the windows. Unconsciously he contracted his sinews, and tightened his muscles until they were rigid. Then the hopelessness ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... 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 ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... insurrection. They flung away their hoes and spades, removed their irons, seized about two hundred and fifty muskets, and marched towards the Hawkesbury, expecting to be there reinforced by so many additional convicts that they would be able to overpower the military. Major Johnstone, with twenty-four soldiers of the New South Wales Corps, pursued them; they halted and turned round to fight, but he charged with so much determination into their midst that they were quickly routed, and ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... the white abettor in these cases risks trifling, if 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 ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... to gain access to her chamber, secrete himself anywhere in the room (except under the bed, where his instincts informed him that Capitola every night looked), and when the household should be buried in repose, steal out upon her, overpower, gag and carry her off, in the silence of the night, leaving no trace of his ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... dear fellow?" the Master queried. "To seize a ship—a water-ship or one of the air matters nothing—and to overpower the crew, kill or wound a few, throw them outboard and sail away, comes pretty near constituting piracy. Of course the air-rules and laws aren't wholly settled yet; but we're in a fair way of giving ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... quiet course. It did not take him long to discover that it was possible to live happily without the Clerkland, and he wondered in himself at the intensity of the desire to obtain it, which he had suffered to overpower him. He felt no touch of envy towards Owen, whose friendship he began to value more and more, and who voluntarily told him, from information that he had derived from the examiners themselves, that ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... justify him in recurring to his original sense of his unfitness for his sacred calling, as he would hardly ham called it: He had allowed his levity to get the better of his sympathy, and his love of teasing to overpower that love of helping which seemed to him his chief right and reason for being a minister: To play a sort of poor practical joke upon that melancholy girl (who was also so attractive) was not merely unbecoming to him as a minister; it was cruel; it was vulgar; it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... 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 ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... to fighting to protect us? I've taught 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 ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... she, "is this the manner to speak to a lady, to an injured wife who is obliged to bemoan the infidelity of her husband. O, the villain! I will overpower ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric, when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... bound Mr. Baxter sprang for the man. He had determined to overpower him if he could and get food. But in his weakened condition he was no match for his enemy. Callack dealt Mr. Baxter a blow that felled him. Then the leader of the Indians called for help to ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster

... additional reason for disliking the cloister, to which she was destined if she would not marry any of Sir Hildebrand's sons, I could not confide in our affection, which seemed completely subordinate to the mysteries of her singular situation. She would not permit her love to overpower her sense of duty or prudence, and one day proved this by advising me at once to return to London—my father was in Holland, she said, and if Rashleigh was allowed to manage his affairs long, he would be ruined. He would use my father's revenues as a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... 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 ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... nations despise it as slavish. Pigrum et iners videtur sudore adquirere quod possis sanguine parare: has been the motto of all medieval times. In heathen Iceland, the owner of a piece of land might be deprived of it by an adversary who could overpower him in single combat. This mode of acquisition was considered more honorable than purchase. It was Thor's own form of investiture. The ideas of the Romans on rightful acquisition may be inferred from the word mancipium (manu capere).(263) ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... narrow gallery, where he paused, overcome by some sudden and overwhelming emotion. The dog stood too, looking back with a low and sorrowful whine. With a sudden effort he grappled with and shook off the dark spirit that threatened to overpower him. A low murmur was heard apparently from a chamber at no great distance. Without reflecting a moment on the impropriety of his situation, he hastily approached the door. His guide, with a look of almost irresistible persuasion, implored ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... reconciled to the belief that you will never be happy except in a chaste life. I daresay it would be easy for me, for Ulick, or for some other man whom you might take a fancy to, to cause you to put your idea behind you for a time. Your senses are strong, and they overpower you. You were, on more than one occasion, nearly yielding to me, but if you had yielded it would have only resulted in another crisis, so I am glad you did not. It is no pleasure to make love to a woman ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... watch the infinite variety of graceful forms assumed by the curling smoke from a cigarette, full of suggestions for beautiful line arrangements. If this variety of form in your work is allowed to become excessive it will overpower the unity of your conception. It is in the larger unity of your composition that the imaginative faculty will be wanted, and variety in your forms should always be subordinated to ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... explained quickly. "Some one has released the prisoners. We must keep them from reaching the walls. They will overpower our guards and open the gates to the enemy. Britt, see that the searchlight is trained on the gates. We must stop those fellows before it is too late. Time enough to hunt ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... the very front of the platform, and when we had finished the hymn I noticed that the smell of perspiration was beginning to overpower the oranges. It is my misfortune to have an unusually acute sense of smell. No one afflicted with such an infirmity ought to take any part in the politics of ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... firearms, and fired behind bulwarks; the Turks were unprotected by cuirass or helmet or bulwark, and most of them had bows instead of guns. Colonna's volleys decided the fate of the Fanal, and 'Ali Pasha departed this life. An hour and a half had sufficed to disperse the Ottoman right and to overpower the flagship in chief. When the fleet saw the Christian ensign at the peak of the Turkish capitana they redoubled their efforts: Veniero, severely wounded, still fought with the Seraskier Pertev ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... do you not at once spring to your feet, collar the intruder, and shout lustily for help, if he prove too strong for you? Prompt and vigorous action in such a case is simply the impulse of instinct. But how if you recognize in the untimely visitor a member of your own household? Will you seize and overpower him without asking a single question, or waiting for a word of explanation? Will you not pause for some overt act of hostility, some convincing proof of a fell purpose? Suppose it transpire that he really means mischief, and you lose an important advantage by your delay to strike. You may regret ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... physical difficulties inseparable from 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 ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... fair description—none of your poetical balderdash, but an honest plodding description of a perfectly comfortable bed, and of the process of going to sleep, would, judiciously administered soon after dinner, overpower the vivacity of any tranquil gentleman who loves a nap after that meal—gently draw the curtains of his senses, and extinguish the bed-room candle of his consciousness. In the doctor's address and quotation ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the Baron could defend himself kicked him in the abdomen, so that he fell over backward to the ground; then Frederick quietly gave himself up to the peasants, who at the order of the justice of the peace were trying to overpower him. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... seemed 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

... quarters to the chief fair of Lucania on the day of St. Cyprian. This must by all means be suppressed, and your Respectability should quietly collect a sufficient number of the owners and tenants of the adjoining farms[568] to overpower these freebooters and bring them to justice. Any rustic or other person found guilty of disturbing the fair should be at once punished with the stick[569], and then exhibited with some mark of infamy ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... true, that we ought ever to be on the alert, that we may not induce our friend into evil. We should be upon our guard, that we may not from overweening arrogance and self-conceit dictate to another, overpower his more sober judgment, and assume a rashness for him, in which perhaps we would not dare to indulge for ourselves. We should be modest in our suggestions, and rather supply him with materials for decision, than with a decision ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... separates it from the land on the west. The only chance of success for such a raid was to make a surprise of it before Cedar Point could be fortified, to enter the bay and land a force sufficient to overpower the prison garrison ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... Panama. The weak sway of the New Granada Republic, despised by lawless men, and respected by none, is powerless to control the refuse of every nation which meet together upon its soil. Whenever they feel inclined now they overpower the law easily; but seven years ago, when I visited the Isthmus of Panama, things were much worse, and a licence existed, compared to which the present lawless state ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... got into the ditch. A wheel began to slip and I thought the weight would overpower them; but Lance Mordaunt made a tremendous effort and held up the axle until ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss

... the trail almost continually, and thus his leg muscles were splendidly developed. Whereas the white boy swung an axe or wielded a hoe almost every day and the upper part of his body was in excellent condition. He saw that if he could seize Crow Wing quickly and with a first effort overpower him, the victory ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... 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 niched themselves into such ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the work of a moment for Gregory to overpower the thief of the small boat and bind him with the dory's painter. The man had fought desperately only for a moment, then collapsed, and gibbering with fear had allowed himself to be bound ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... therefore I am come to this which is your native place, and have brought the knights of the Cid with me. They are come here under my safeguard. Let not therefore you nor your kinsmen deceive yourselves, thinking to overpower them by tumult, or in any other way than by fair combat; for whosoever shall begin a tumult, I have given my people orders to cut him in pieces upon the spot, and no enquiry shall be made touching ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... and as sad as—as—It only speaks of love, of nothing else; but you feel such a great longing overpower you, and that you would like to fly off to the Ganges, where the lotus blossoms, and where—" She stopped, and then she laughed merrily and said, "Oh, that is too ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... already driven off the Dark Thing, since the girl had come to me the night past without It appearing before or afterward. Perhaps, woman-timid, she exaggerated the danger and It had retreated after the second failure to overpower me. ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... on his mind tells in the impression on the plate; whatever is more than that does not go to increase the richness of the result, as picture, but belongs to another sphere. The landscape-photographs that we have lately had in such admirable perfection, however they may overpower our judgment at first sight, will, I believe, be found not to wear well; they have really less in them than even second-rate drawings, and therefore are sooner exhausted. The most satisfactory results of the photograph are where the subject is professedly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... controversy with ignorant people must not expect to be treated with honour; and if a fool should overpower a philosopher by his loquacity it is not to be wondered at, for a common stone ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston

... loose stone lying at a little distance from the fighters and hastened to procure it. If she could strike the brigand a single good blow on the side of the head, Leopold might easily overpower him. When she had gathered up the rock and turned back toward the two she saw that the man she thought to be the king was not much in the way of needing outside assistance. She could not but marvel ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... vaso-motor disturbances, impulsiveness, ferocity, etc. At the age of twenty, while serving in the army, for some trivial motive he suddenly attacked and killed his superior officer and eight or ten soldiers who tried to overpower him. Finally he was bound and placed in a cell, where he fell into a sound slumber and on awaking had entirely forgotten what he had done. He was condemned to death, but my father, who examined him medically, was able to prove conclusively that the crime had been ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... that the poor heart-broken creature was not herself when she wrote it? This is not a letter, it is a mere scream of agony. Put yourself in her place. Imagine yourself a woman—a creature in whom the feelings overpower the judgment. Consider the shock, the wound, the frenzy; and, besides, she had no idea that you left this house to get her husband the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be 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 does nothing [as experience ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... states, we harries that foogitive panther for eighteen miles an' in our hot ardor founders two hosses. Fatigue an' weariness begins to overpower us; also our prey weakens along with the rest. In the half glimpses we now an' ag'in gets of him it's plain that both pace an' distance is tellin' fast. Still, he presses on; an' as thar's no spur like fear, that panther ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... with which the Test Act had been framed and supported was rather political than religious is notorious; indeed, it was supported by the Protestant Dissenters, though they themselves were to suffer by its operation, so greatly at that time did the dread of Popery and the French King overpower every other consideration.[192] On the Roman Catholics, after the reign of James II. had increased that apprehension, the restrictions were tightened. But those which inflicted disabilities on the Protestant Non-conformists had been ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... overpowering sensation. We ourselves at such moments become fiery molecules of pain, burning atoms of pleasure. Just as the logical reason can abstract itself from the other primal energies and perform strange and fantastic tricks, so the activity of sensation can so absorb, obsess and overpower the whole personality that the rhythm of existence ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... sound of a report, and to know that his quietus had come; but at last he was aware that it was his captors' wish to take him prisoner, and not to kill him. They had closed in upon him now that he was disarmed, and were using every artifice to overpower him without further injury. ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... 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 it. But there seemed nothing for her to do. She could ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... but although his 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 too thorough ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... origin and nature, as the vital principle of American institutions is now assailed. The enemies, the sappers, the miners, are the Union-Slavery-Saviours of all kinds and hues. But darkness cannot destroy light, nor cold overpower heat:—so the united conspiracy will not prevail against light and right ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... to all cases where it is desired to exaggerate, or to rouse some vehement emotion, and generally when we want to carry away our audience with us. We must employ the diffusive style, on the other hand, when we wish to overpower them with a flood of language. It is suitable, for example, to familiar topics, and to perorations in most cases, and to digressions, and to all descriptive and declamatory passages, and in dealing with history or natural science, ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... the poetry of William Blake, not with the mountain peaks and gorgeous foliage and rushing torrents of a landscape that clamours to be admired and would fain overpower us with its picturesque appeal, but with the quietest, gentlest, softest, least assuming background to that "going forth" to our work, "and our labour until the evening," which is ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... be produced. Sounds have a great power in these as in most other passions. I do not mean words, because words do not affect simply by their sounds, but by means altogether different. Excessive loudness alone is sufficient to overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with terror. The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms, thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and awful sensation in the mind, though we can observe no nicety or artifice ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... it is unusual for burglars to operate at so early an hour, it is unusual for burglars to strike a lady to prevent her screaming, since one would imagine that was the sure way to make her scream, it is unusual for them to commit murder when their numbers are sufficient to overpower one man, it is unusual for them to be content with a limited plunder when there was much more within their reach, and finally, I should say, that it was very unusual for such men to leave a bottle half empty. How do all these ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... high rate. His example, and possibly his persuasion, induced several of his friends and associates to become candidates for Town Council membership, and in a very short time he had a strong and influential following, made up of men of energy, substance, and good social position, who soon began to overpower and make things more lively perhaps than pleasant for the anti-progressives in the Corporation. In Israelitish story we are told that a new king arose who knew not Joseph, but in Birmingham a new municipal kingdom arose that knew Joseph ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... The horror overpower'd me by surprise. My heart betray'd me in the stranger's presence: He was a witness of my weakness, yea, I sank into his arms; and that has shamed me. I must replace myself in his esteem, And I must speak with ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... not myself how my fears were so far pacified as to yield to this, except that his energy seemed to overpower mine. Indeed I suffered dreadfully the rest of the way. I knew the youth's generous spirit, and my imagination was haunted with the idea, that the blood was flowing every foot of the road, and that he would rather drop from the horse than be ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... 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 ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... all over with clotted blood, as a storm overturns bushes and trees. Then followed a moment of terrific fright, in which it seemed that this terrible Mazovian, all by himself, would hew and slay all these people. Like a pack of barking hounds that cannot overpower a fierce boar without the assistance of the hunters, so were those armed Germans; they could not match his might and fierceness in that fight which resulted only ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... true, Susan feeling that it was not the whole truth, made but faint response. However, the Countess went on, expecting to overpower her with gratitude. "The gentleman I mean is willing to take her in her smock, and moreover his wardship and marriage were granted to my Lord by her Majesty. Thou knowest ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to keep them, 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 he got away. It was, of course, ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... first secures Egypt and establishes his dynasty firmly there. Philip Aridaeus, half-brother of Alexander, succeeds him on the throne of Macedon, with Perdiccas as regent. Demosthenes returns to Athens and rouses the Greek states to recover their freedom; under Leosthenes they overpower Antipater, who takes refuge in Lamia, whence this is called the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... retreat, the heroic sachem had earnestly and repeatedly recommended a sudden and determined face-about on their pursuers, and only the night before the decisive battle he had urged a backward movement, that, under screen of the darkness, they might surprise the sleeping enemy in his camp, and overpower him before any combined resistance could be made. But all in vain. His white ally was but a fat poltroon—"a big, fat, cowardly dog," to use Tecumseh's own comparison, "that carries his tail curled fiercely over his back till danger threatens, then ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... neutral, and were without weapons to defend themselves, being nearest to the savages, were stabbed before we could help them. We fought with the greatest desperation. Boxall cut down one of the fellows, and the carpenter and I wounded two others. Still they came on, as if resolved to overpower us. I observed, also, that Ben was near enough to see what was taking place, and was hoisting his sail, unable to resist his desire to come to our assistance. Should he come near enough to enable any of the people on our raft to ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... natures of watches, I imagined to be nothing short of fatal. The excitement through which I had passed, and the rough-and-ready usage to which I had been subjected during the day, seemed all of a sudden to overpower me. In some unaccountable way I found my hands caught together in a manner I had never known them to be before; no effort of mine could disengage them, and the exertion thus required, added to the fatigues of the day, produced ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... fear for our virtuous young King, that the faction forming will overpower him and render his reign uncomfortable [he writes to Strahan]. On the contrary, I am of opinion that his virtue and the consciousness of his sincere intentions to make his people happy will give him firmness and steadiness in his measures and ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... the uncut seed start, but the stronger soon overpower the weaker, and finally starve them out. A plot planted with three small, uncut potatoes to the hill, and another planted with three pieces of two eyes each to the hill, will not show much difference in number of vines ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot

... don't know. I dare not trust myself to go through with to-day's work. I have such strange, wild, mad risings in my heart, in my nerves, in my brain! I want something to overpower all this, and keep ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... of Siegfried's visit, it is reported that the kings of Saxony and Denmark are advancing with four thousand men. The dismay of the Burgundians is such that Siegfried proposes to go forth and overpower the enemy with a force of merely one thousand men. Only too glad to accept this offer, Gunther allows Siegfried to depart, and is overjoyed when the young hero comes back with two prisoner monarchs in his train. The messenger who announces ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... Martinique, and, after there meeting with some other ships, to re-cross the Atlantic with all possible speed, and liberate the fleets blockaded in Ferrol, Brest, and Rochefort. The junction of the fleets would give Napoleon a force of fifty sail in the British Channel, a force more than sufficient to overpower all the squadrons which Great Britain could possibly collect for the defence of its shores. Such a design exhibited all the power of combination which marked Napoleon's greatest triumphs; but it required of an indifferent marine the precision and swiftness ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... and fence off all assaults of conviction: and this last way the victory would be altogether as hopeless, as if two persons were engaged of so equal strength, that it were impossible any one should overpower the other. ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... have no business to transact in Ladysmith for the moment and will now continue my journey. Good-night." "No, no, no, wait a minute," returned the man who had spoken first, "you know you can't pass here." "We shall see about that," I said. They rushed upon me, but ere they could overpower me I had levelled my revolver. The first speaker tried to disarm me, but I shook him off and shot him. He fell, and as far I know, or could see, was not fatally wounded. The other man, thinking discretion the better part ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... attack. They would probably wait an hour or two, in the hope of tempting us to venture afloat; then, failing that, they would cautiously close in upon the island, land, steal up as close as possible to the battery, and then endeavour to overpower us ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... not visible. I rushed to the store with a throbbing breast. Alas! the picture had only been shifted to another light. Before the revulsion of feeling had time to overpower me I was seized by ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... part of the lower orders having got government and the distribution of plunder into their hands, they will use its resources in each municipality to form a body of adherents. These rulers and their adherents will be strong enough to overpower the discontents of those who have not been able to assert their share of the spoil. The unfortunate adventurers in the cheating lottery of plunder will probably be the least sagacious or the most inactive and irresolute of the gang. If, on ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... for constructing the bridge was his fear that, some time when the Ister was frozen, war might be made on the Romans across the water, and his desire to enjoy the easy access to them that this work would permit. Hadrian, on the contrary, was afraid that the barbarians might overpower the guard at the bridge and cross into Moesia, and so he ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... not let the suggestions of timidity overpower your better reason: the danger of neglect can be but as the probability of the obligation, which, when you consider it with freedom, you find very little, and that little growing every day less. Open your heart to the influence of the light, which, from time to time, breaks in upon you: ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... Quizquiz five leagues from there, because he had gone by a roundabout road through which the cacique guided him.[74] But, before arriving at enemy's camp, he encountered two hundred Indians posted in a hollow, and because the land was rough he was not able to take their fort away from them and to overpower them so that they could not give notice of his coming, which they did do. But, although this company [of Indians] was in a strong place, it was not so bold as to wait for his attack and it withdrew to the other side of a bridge ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho

... telegraphic communication, as we had done before at Atlanta, and after full consultation, it was agreed to let these citizens give the signal. This was to be the cry of fire, and when it was heard, we were all to rush upon the guards, and overpower them. There were only about thirty guards in the building, and we had over a hundred and fifty men concerned in the plot. We were, therefore, sure of success if every one performed his part—at least in getting out of the building, ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... first she felt a little shy, and all her surroundings were so strange, the piano was so big; she touched it with her small, taper fingers, and it seemed to her that the deep, soft notes were going to overpower her. Then she looked at Miss Goring and felt uncomfortable; but she touched the notes again, and she began to forget the room, and Miss Goring, and the grand piano; and the soul of music stood in her eyes and touched the tips of her fingers. The music was quite unclassical, quite unconventional; ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... said the doctor, "we might, of course, at some given moment overpower the garrison that is maintained here, and seize the forts, and perhaps we might be able to mine the harbours; what then? In a fortnight or so we could be starved into unconditional submission. Remember, all the advantages of isolated ...
— When William Came • Saki

... for him. Inwardly he 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 ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... seized by dizziness, fallen down beside his horse. He had borne for long in silence the increasing pain in his shoulder and breast, and endeavoured to conceal from himself, as well as from others, feelings of feverish dizziness which seized his head. Even now, when it threatened to overpower him, he would not allow it to be of any consequence. With the help of the servant, he made several attempts to seat himself again upon his horse, but in vain. He could no longer lift up his fevered head. Lying upon the snow on his knees, and ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... overpower you. For a day or two you must rest, and do nothing but breathe the sweet air. I have to be busy getting things in order and looking after my garden. Lisa will take her work on the piazza, and you can lie in one ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... on the soles, and it is: "A good song must keep time!" But Beckmesser does not stop for him. Beckmesser disdainfully goes on, as if he and the lady were alone in the world, and he sang thus loud to overpower some such thing as the sea-surf. In his engrossment he fails to take account of various ominous signs. He does not see David appear at his chamber-window. In spite of Eva's clothes which she is wearing, the boy ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... writes from personal Knowledge, and makes haste to gratify the publick Curiosity, there is Danger left his Interest, his Fear, his Gratitude, or his Tenderness, overpower his Fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an Act of Piety to hide the Faults or Failings of their Friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their Detection; ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson

... with her eyes closed, Desiree saw anew all the incidents of her suicide, all the hideous scenes through which she had passed in returning from death to life. In the fever, which rapidly increased, in the intense drowsiness which began to overpower her, her mad journey across Paris continued to excite and torment her. Myriads of dark streets stretched away before her, with the Seine at the end ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the example of the hungry passengers, and hurried off to breakfast. The engine was deserted. This was even better than the adventurers could have hoped, for they had feared that it might be necessary to overpower the engineer before they could get away ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... Scarborough, "I, too, had just glanced at the book and had learned a few facts from the prospectus. And I failed to sell, except to an occasional fool whom I was able to overpower. Every one instinctively felt the estimate I myself placed upon my goods. But as I went on the book gradually forced itself upon me. And, long before the summer was over, I felt that I was an ambassador of education to ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... friendship. At the Hawkesbury they were not so friendly; a settler there and his servant were nearly murdered in their hut by some natives from the woods, who stole upon them with such secrecy, as to wound and overpower them before they could procure assistance. The servant was so much hurt by them with spears and clubs, as to be in danger of losing his life. A few days after this circumstance, a body of natives having attacked the settlers, and ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... a large iron kettle on his back; in one hand he held by the legs a live chicken, in the other a cane; and he was leading a goat. Just as they were coming to a deep dark ravine, the woman said to the man, "I am afraid to go through that ravine with you: it is a lonely place, and you might overpower me and kiss me by force."—"If you were afraid of that," said the man, "you shouldn't have walked with me at all: how can I possibly overpower you and kiss you by force when I have this great iron kettle on my back, a cane in one hand and a live chicken in the other, and am leading this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... earth is reached only by the absolute elimination of the feminine. Ah! man is at his best in war," he went on, his attitude becoming less studied and more forcible, as he allowed his intellectual interest to overpower his vanity; "there he is all masculine; man without the limitations that the presence of woman imposes upon him. There woman is ignored, and even if she has been the cause of the war—and to be the cause of war is woman's noblest prerogative!—she is for the time being as completely ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... their centre, and the advanced squadron two, three, or four, ships a-head of their centre, so as to ensure getting at their commander in chief, whom every effort must be made to capture. The whole impression of the British fleet must be, to overpower from two or three ships a-head of their commander in chief, supposed to be their centre, to the rear of their fleet. I will suppose twenty sail of the line to be untouched; it must be some time before, they could perform a manoeuvre to bring their force compact to attack any ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... when the land is not to remain in constant pasture; yet it is by no means a fit grass for permanent meadow, as it exhausts the soil, and presently goes into a state of decay for want of nourishment, when other plants natural to the soil are apt to overpower it. There are several varieties of this grass. Some I have seen with the flowers double, others with branched panicles; some that grow very luxuriantly, and others that are little better than annuals; and there is also ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... 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 it if he did. ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... containing the rest of the enemy's fleet from the outset. It is to be dealt with at a second stage of the action by all ships that are still capable of renewing the engagement after the first stage. 'The whole impression,' as Nelson put it, in case he was forced to attack from to-leeward, was to overpower the enemy's line from a little ahead of the centre to the rearmost ship. He does not say, however, that this was to be 'the whole impression' of the intended attack from to-windward. 'The whole impression' ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... earth all full of devils were, Wide roaring to devour us; Yet fear we no such grievous fear, They shall not overpower us. This world's prince may still Scowl fierce as he will, He can harm us none, He's judged; the deed is done; One ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... 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 ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 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 and men, came round from ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... dealt in modern warfare. At 2 o'clock, when the advance of Canrobert's 6th corps towards Vionville threatened to sweep away the wearied Brandenburgers, six squadrons of the 7th regiment of Cuirassiers with a few Uhlans flung themselves on the new lines of foemen, not to overpower them—that was impossible—but to delay their advance and weaken their impact. Only half of the brave horsemen returned from that ride of death, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... is a perpetual law, establishing and preserving the balance of dominion by such a distribution, that no one man or number of men, within the compass of the few or aristocracy, can come to overpower the whole people by ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... deserted flagging, upsprouting through its closest seams. Sometimes, when incited by some little incident, however trivial in itself, thoughts of home would—either by gradually working and working upon him, or else by an impetuous rush of recollection—overpower him for a time to a ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... could, at an appointed signal, attack the town at the same moment in five different quarters. There were less than a hundred persons in the town capable of bearing arms, the remainder being women and children. The savages thus prepared to overpower them fifteen to one, and, making the assault by surprise, felt sure of an ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... threw me into a fresh agony, which kept me awake till I had in some measure again reconciled myself to my solitary situation. But having only slept a few hours since my dear doctor was taken ill, I no sooner got my mind a little composed, than sleep again began to overpower my senses, when the same, or a ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... behind him and struck him in the back with a spear, midway between the shoulders. This man as soon as ever he had come up with his chariot had dismounted twenty men, so proficient was he in all the arts of war—he it was, O knight Patroclus, that first drove a weapon into you, but he did not quite overpower you. Euphorbus then ran back into the crowd, after drawing his ashen spear out of the wound; he would not stand firm and wait for Patroclus, unarmed though he now was, to attack him; but Patroclus unnerved, alike by the blow the god had given him and by the spear-wound, drew back ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... I did, what could you do against such numbers? They are four to one—would soon overpower you, and one more ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... struggle Lanyard mastered the temptation to dash after the spy, overtake and overpower him, expose and give him up to justice. Only the knowledge that by remaining quiescent, by biding his time, he might be enabled to redeem his word to the Brooke girl, gave him strength to ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... seizing upon that instant's slip, had turned the tables upon him so completely that he cursed himself in his chagrin. Here he was, headed for Dr. Hartmann's house, on the outskirts of the town. Once there, the latter's attendants could easily overpower him and carry him into the place helpless. There seemed no possible means of escape. He determined to brazen the matter out, and meet Hartmann on his own ground. Resistance would at this juncture be useless. He congratulated himself that ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks

... council—Pitt, Hagthorpe, Yberville, Wolverstone, Dyke, and Ogle—a proposal to storm the fort from the landward side. Crossing to the island under cover of night, they would take the Spaniards by surprise and attempt to overpower them before they could shift their ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... out of place," replied the ox, "for my time has now come. The bull, sick and emaciated as he was, will overpower me. Watch our battle to-morrow, for I will not let you fight with him; you are young and delicate, and still have a great deal to see in the world. When you perceive that he is conquering me and about to push me under the ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various

... through the woods to the head waters of the Connecticut River, and follow it down to Fort No. 4. We can't go back by the way we came, for the French and Indians could easily collect a force that would overpower us. I sent word to Amherst to have plenty of provisions for us at the mouth of the Ammonusuc River, and we can get ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... announcement seemed the prelude to a recommencement of the dispute, there was another interference on the part of the company; and a vast quantity of talking and clamouring ensued, in the course of which Mr. Noddy gradually allowed his feelings to overpower him, and professed that he had ever entertained a devoted personal attachment towards Mr. Gunter. To this Mr. Gunter replied that, upon the whole, he rather preferred Mr. Noddy to his own brother; on hearing which admission, Mr. Noddy magnanimously ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... there is any chance of their overtaking us until tomorrow. The man Jose saw may have had companions close at hand, but they will know that we are well armed, and will do nothing until they have gathered a large number and feel sure that they can overpower us. They will probably take up the track to-morrow at daylight; but we have made a long march, and can calculate that we shall find some defensible position before they overtake us. Jose and I will ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... cannon went on rolling, rolling. Presently carriages with travellers began to leave the town, galloping away by the Ghent barrier. The prophecies of the French partisans began to pass for facts. "He has cut the armies in two," it was said. "He is marching straight on Brussels. He will overpower the English, and be here to-night." "He will overpower the English," shrieked Isidor to his master, "and will be here to-night." The man bounded in and out from the lodgings to the street, always returning with some fresh particulars ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... rejected by the Department on account of their excessive and unbearable shrillness. Whenever any sort of street music commences at either end of your street, turn on, by an apparatus specially arranged in your area, the full force of the above. This will not only overpower your would-be tormentors, but bring every householder in the neighbourhood to his street-door begging you to desist. You have merely to say, "When they stop, I turn off," to get them to comprehend the situation. It may possibly lead to the intervention ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various

... 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 so long as it is only ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... help, either. If you try it, we won't shoot you. We'll just overpower you and start mind-probing right away. Now; you feel that suppressing Merlin was worth any sacrifice. We're not unreasonable. If you can convince us that Merlin ought not to be brought to light.... Well, you ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... men would have been only playing into the hands of the Athenians. Moreover, every one was sparing of his life; their good fortune was already assured, and they did not wish to fall in the hour of victory. Even by this irregular mode of fighting they thought that they could overpower and capture the Athenians. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... 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

... still present, but as watchful and pertinacious as ever. And that night, or rather in the early hours of the following morning, came the climax, when the wily foe made a last desperate attempt to rush our defences and overpower ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... walk, and his companion nothing at all. Travelling has become so serious a business from its labours and accompaniments, that the result often seems to fall short of what was expected, and the means seem to overpower the end. On the other hand, a visit to unpretending places in an unpretending way often produces unexpected entertainment for the contemplative man. Some such experiment was the following, where everything was ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald

... 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 ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... as 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 ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... well will she merit the sacrifice 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

... the proposed letter you sent me, of Coleridge producing valuable works if his mind were relieved by the certainty of a present income, you suffered your feelings to overpower your memory. Coleridge had that income for many years. It was given him expressly that he might have leisure for literary productions; and to hold out the expectation that he would perform the same conditions, if a like contract were renewed, is ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... perished. Sulla was ordered to take the command of the army which was to avenge their death; but, while he was raising his forces, Marius, angry that the patricians had hindered the plebeians and Italians from gaining more by the Social War, raised up a great tumult, meaning to overpower the patricians' resistance. He would have done more wisely had he waited until Sulla was quite gone, for that general came back to the rescue of his friends with six newly-raised legions, and Marius could only just contrive to escape from Rome, where he ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... they think there is a chance to overpower us. But we've shown 'em they can't count on ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to put the passions in motion, or to have excited either hope or fear, or zeal or malignity, sufficient to induce any man to put his reputation in hazard, however little he might value it, or to overpower the love of truth, however weak ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... 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 ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... Carthoris. "There is no time to be lost. Astok will be back in a moment with enough warriors to overpower me." ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... certain, would take place at night. The Dyaks would land in force, rush the cave and hut, and overpower him by sheer numbers. The fight, if fight there was, would be sharp, but decisive. Perhaps, if he received some warning, Iris and he might retreat in the darkness to the cover of the trees. A last stand could be made among the boulders on Summit Rock. But ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... polypiaria, zoophytes, and shell-fish, from the Mediterranean. It is the opinion of M. Brogniart, that the uniformity which existed in the primeval times can only be attributed to the temperature arising from the internal heat, which had yet, as he supposes, been sufficiently great to overpower the ordinary meteorological influences, and spread a tropical ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... certainly he lost it on this occasion. He was endowed with no small share of physical strength, and for an instant the wild notion came into his head that he might perhaps succeed in throwing the two detectives into the roadway and then overpower the driver, taking charge of the vehicle himself and trusting to luck to again catch sight of the vanished lady and her companion, who, he doubted not, had awaited her arrival at the quiet corner where she ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... made a cry, the whole multitude arose, and in the amazement they were in caught hold of their arms immediately, and betook themselves to their own defense; and so long as they thought they were only the zealots who attacked them, they went on boldly, as hoping to overpower them by their numbers; but when they saw others pressing in upon them also, they perceived the Idumeans were got in; and the greatest part of them laid aside their arms, together with their courage, and betook themselves to lamentations. But some few of the younger ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... his muscles always ready, as quick as a flash to meet any strain; but the main source of my success seemed to be my ability to use all the strength in every muscle of my body at any given instant, so as to overpower a much stronger opponent by pouring out on him so much power in a single burst of force that he was carried away and crushed. I have thrown over my head and to a distance of ten feet men seventy-five pounds heavier than I was. This ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... doubt we were ambushed at several points in that defile, but our perfect preparation intimidated our foes. The Indian is cruel as the grave, but he is an arrant coward. He will not risk being the first man shot, though his band may overpower ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... ever thy garb of clay, and when by thine own ceaseless love and longing thou hast won the right to pass the Great Circle, thou shalt find thyself in a land where the glories of the natural scenery alone shall overpower thee with joy—scenery that for ever changes into new wonders and greater beauty. Thou shalt hear music such as thou canst not dream of. Thou shalt find friends, beyond all imagination fair and faithful. Thou shalt read and see the history of all the planets, produced for thee ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... as he recognized, two courses open to him: he could either try to discover Saleratus Bill's sleeping place and by surprise overpower that worthy as he slept; or he could make the best of the interim before his absence was discovered to get as far away as possible. Both courses had obvious disadvantages. The most immediate to the first alternative was the difficulty, failing some clue, of finding Saleratus Bill's ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... necessary," said he, "for the Inca to use treachery with us. He could easily overpower us with numbers were he so disposed. We have also heard that he is a just and merciful prince; and the courtesy he has already shown us, is some token at least of his good will. But why should we hesitate? We have no longer any choice but to go forward. ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... that the malice of his enemies would overpower him. He therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in affliction, a bottle; by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear, and bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort indeed he had not much, for not a single friend ever came ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding



Words linked to "Overpower" :   knock out, kindle, whelm, sweep over, vanquish, trounce, seize, overtake, lock, crush, overmaster, get hold of, shell, devastate, stagger, evoke, raise, beat



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