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Overpower   /ˌoʊvərpˈaʊər/   Listen
Overpower

verb
(past & past part. overpowered; pres. part. overpowering)
1.
Overcome by superior force.  Synonyms: overmaster, overwhelm.
2.
Overcome, as with emotions or perceptual stimuli.  Synonyms: overcome, overtake, overwhelm, sweep over, whelm.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Overpower" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 twinkled ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... 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 an idea which tries in vain ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... 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

... sort of accident. So they said. They really meant to force him into the car, and overpower him. The scheme was to bring him to Market Street ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... to deceit and injury, would be to count all the desires that prevail among the sons of men; since there is no ambition however petty, no wish however absurd, that by indulgence will not be enabled to overpower the influence of virtue. Many there are, who openly and almost professedly regulate all their conduct by their love of money; who have no other reason for action or forbearance, for compliance or refusal, than that they hope to gain more by one than by the other. These are indeed the meanest ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... 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 ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... loose in Europe. "Soapy Smith" the unsavoury but reckless gunman of Skagway, had developed a school of imitators. There were probably a couple of thousand or so of these tough characters scattered all through the north country camps, and the idea was to rally them to a centre, overpower the few policemen, establish a sort of "liberty" government, seize the money and anything else that could be carried, divide it up and then scatter to the outside before any reinforcements could come to the aid of the Mounted Police from the East. It ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... her mother and the lost ones seemed to overpower her for a few seconds, and then to calm her. She rose from her bed, and fell upon her knees ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... occupy very soon if we do not accept your suggestion," smiled Megales. "Buertos! Anything to escape the pressing attentions of your friends outside. I ask only one favor, the loan of a revolver, in order that we may disappoint the mad dogs if they overpower the guard of ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... voice was such as almost to overpower Aramis, and notwithstanding his control over himself, he advanced a few steps towards him, with his eyes wide open and his lips trembling. The movement he made was so marked that Baisemeaux, notwithstanding his preoccupation, observed it. "This gentleman ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... we were speechless with astonishment. Then came a surge of excitement. What should we do? What could we do? Obviously nothing. Eleven hundred, sick, enfeebled prisoners could not even overpower their guards, let alone make such a diversion in the rear of a line-of-battle as would assist our folks to gain a victory. But while we debated the engine whistled sharply—a frightened shriek it sounded to us—and began pushing our train rapidly backward ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... not soon forget your kindness; but do hurry off before the train starts." So does the rush and rattle of modern times overpower romance ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... 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 of what avail to purchase their ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... quick about it, I expect we shall catch a good number," I answered. "Where is Mr Saunders? We shall require a strong party to overpower the fellows, especially as there are some desperate ruffians among them;" and I told him how I had discovered the ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... as well do so. The muskets can be loaded and laid by the bulwarks, but they are not to be touched until I give the order. No doubt they also are armed. I am anxious not to fire a shot if it can be helped, and once alongside we are strong enough to overpower them with our cutlasses only. With the five blacks we are now double their strength, and even Carthew may see the uselessness ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... said Catharine, shaking off the weakness which seemed to threaten to overpower her a moment before, "this is the language of an ungrateful fool, or rather of a frantic madman. I have told you already, there was no one who stood, at the beginning of this conference, more high in my opinion than he who is now losing ground with every word he utters in the tone of unjust suspicion ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... proud and ambitious. But if he was glad to gain glory for himself he considered the good of his people also. To unite them and overpower the palefaces was the ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... encountered the white domino, and, under his protection, was safely conveyed to a further part of the room. Her intention and desire were to quit it immediately, but at the remonstrance of her conductor, she consented to remain some time longer. "The conflict at the door," said he, "will quite overpower you. Stay here but a few minutes, and both parties will have struggled themselves tired, and you may then go without difficulty. Meantime, can you not, by this faint light, suppose me one of your guardians, Mr Briggs, for example, or, if he is too old for me, Mr Harrel, and entrust ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... you, love. A fig for all the stars in the sky! Your bright eyes outshine them all in radiance, and overpower them in influence. All the music of the spheres is to me discord compared with the voice of Angelique des ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... he couldn't spare a man. How much more use I would be if I brought help than stayed here and perhaps shot a couple of Indians, who might overpower us by their numbers. I was wondering if Golightly and the woods would be a shorter way than my ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... an entrance we must overpower him. Any means you like. Sticks or fists, and remember if it's a scrap in the dark to make for the man's throat. I expect you little devils have eyes like cats. The scoundrels must be kept away from the ladies at all costs. If ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... He bowed to a chunkily-built man of medium height in a stiffly brocaded jacket, carrying a small leather briefcase. The man had a whaler's beard of blond-red hair that looked slightly out of period, but the costume managed to overpower ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... third day, and the tenth found her still in her berth, altogether unable to stand up against the power that held her. In vain she struggled against it. The "Steadfast's" slightest motion was sufficient to overpower her quite, till at last she made no effort to rise, but lay there, disgusted with herself and all the world. On the calmest and fairest days they would prevail on her to be helped up to the deck, and there amid shawls and pillows she would sit, enduring one ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... Secretary, George Chalmers, as I have before shown, is twenty millions; and, therefore, the total amount of bank notes in circulation, all made payable on demand, is sixty millions. This enormous sum will astonish the most stupid stock-jobber, and overpower the credulity of the most thoughtless Englishman: but were it only a third part of that sum, the bank cannot pay half a crown in ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... withdrawn into itself, in attaining to Brahma or Emancipation.[762] One endued with patience and a cleansed soul, should, without doubt, control one's understanding. With the understanding (thus disciplined), one should next control one's mind, and then with the mind overpower the objects of the senses. Upon the mind being thus brought under control and the senses being all subdued, the senses will become luminous and gladly enter into Brahma. When one's senses are withdrawn into the mind, the result that occurs ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... arrived in the province of a warlike tribe of Indians who, instead of flying and hiding themselves, came forth to the attack. They set upon the Spaniards with furious yells, thinking to overpower them at once. They were armed with bows and arrows, and clubs made of palm-wood almost as hard as iron. But the first shock of the report from the fire-arms of the Spaniards struck them with terror. They took to flight, but were closely pursued by the ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich

... new inquisitors found themselves unable to act for want of help; meanwhile the objects of their mission forsook the city, and found shelter in the neighboring districts; and Ferdinand had to issue specific orders to overpower the hostility of all the classes of the people and to compel the magistrates to assist the new set of officers ecclesiastic. These orders were most ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... Rome, hereafter, 'Twill be no crime to have been Cato's friend. Portius, draw near: my son, thou oft hast seen Thy sire engaged in a corrupted state, Wrestling with vice and faction: now thou see'st me Spent, overpower'd, despairing of success. Let me advise thee to retreat betimes To thy paternal seat, the Sabine field; Where the great Censor toil'd with his own hands, And all our frugal ancestors were bless'd In humble virtues, ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison

... were not in the least danger, my dear Lady Delacour; that it was merely a fainting fit. Do not suffer a vain imagination thus to overpower ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... latter, "I should like to see you do it, sir," Jack Hopkins curtly retaliating—"You shall feel me do it, sir, in half a minute." The reconciliation of the two attained its climax of absurdity in the Reading, when Mr. Noddy, having gradually allowed his feelings to overpower him, professed that he had ever entertained a devoted personal attachment to Mr. Hopkins. Consequent upon this, Mr. Hopkins, we were told, replied, that, "on the whole, he rather preferred Mr. Noddy to his own mother"—the word standing, of course, as "brother" in the original. ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... it was necessary to proceed more carefully, for fear of running on the rocks, which jutted out in certain parts of the bay. Though the surface of the bay was smooth, there was a slight surf on the shore, the noise of which, as it broke, tended to overpower any sound which the oars made as they dipped ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... development of any power or susceptibility before its time, nor be too much troubled if we find that, in the first two or three years of life, the animal propensities—which are more advanced in respect to the organization which they depend upon—seem sometimes to overpower the higher sentiments and principles, which, so far as the capacity for them exists at all, must be yet in embryo. We must be willing to wait for each to be developed in its ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... way until you are within striking distance of the men on guard. Watch the front upper windows of this house; and if you see two lights displayed, you will know they are in the tunnel. If you waited here till your man comes back, you would be too late; so go now, and, if you see the two lights, overpower the men at the mouth of the tunnel unless they are too many for you. If they are, then there's nothing to do but retreat. When you have captured the guard, make them go down into the tunnel; then you and your men tear down the dyke and fill the hole full of stones; I will ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... death of children, of a parent, or of a wife—move him either to real or simulated agitation.[1] Nor will intense physical suffering overpower this habitual stoicism. He has seen unmoved the agony of many victims. He will himself endure the like without any outward manifestation of pain. In yonder bed he will one day suffer tortures surpassing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... pleased to give orders that the promises, which he had graciously made, might be speedily executed. He represented, that if succours were not immediately sent into Germany, the Austrians, after vanquishing their enemies, would go and overpower the Duchess of Savoy the King's sister, and penetrate into France. He afterwards shewed that the Swedish army was in great danger of being overwhelmed, if a powerful diversion were not speedily made. After this speech, Grotius ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... of the Jews had continually been growing wider: 'As in heaven, so on earth.' The sense of the division of man from God, as a finite being from the Infinite, as weak and sinful from the Omnipotent Goodness, is not indeed lost; but it can no longer overpower the consciousness of oneness. The terms 'Son' and 'Father' at once state the opposition and mark its limit. They show that it is not an absolute opposition, but one which presupposes an indestructible principle of unity, that can and must become a principle of reconciliation." ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... thorn in her 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. ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... through the ambient parts of the Earth, do, as they are increased by the supplying and generating principles, and thereby (having not sufficient room to expand themselves) extreamly condens'd, at last overpower, with their elastick properties, the resistence of the incompassing Earth, and lifting it up, or cleaving it, and so shattering of the parts of the Earth above it, do at length, where they find the parts of the Earth above them more loose, make their way upwards, and carrying a great ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... passion may 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 in those ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... from personal knowledge, and makes haste to gratify the publick curiosity, there is danger lest 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; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegyrick, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... be crushed or stifled. His mouth was open, his 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

... gravest intellectual imperfections. We may apply to humanity the idea which, as Hebrew students tell us, is imputed in the Talmud to the Supreme Being. God prays, the Talmud says; and his prayer is this,—'Be it my will that my mercy overpower my justice.' And so with men, with or without their will, their mercifulness overpowers their logic. And not their mercifulness only, but all their good impulses overpower their logic. To repeat the words which I have put into the objector's mouth, we do not always work ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... 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

... believed that this Indian still continued in the neighbourhood, there were some who strongly suspected he might have gone off to the island of Chiloe, where they feared he would alarm the Spaniards, and would soon return with a force sufficient to surprise or overpower the Anna. The master was therefore prevailed upon to discontinue firing the evening gun, and there is a particular reason for attending to this circumstance, to be explained hereafter; for he had hitherto, from an ostentatious imitation of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... rushing with all his might to the annihilation of this terrible poet, who, like some gorgon, hydra, or chimera dire planted at the gate, carried off a yearly tale of youths and virgins from the city. In literature, only a revolutionist can thoroughly overpower a revolutionist. Mr. Carlyle had fully as much daring as Byron; his writing at its best, if without the many-eyed minuteness and sustained pulsing force of Byron, has still the full swell and tide and energy of genius: he is as lawless in ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley

... pictures, that amused her for a little while, for she thought they were beautiful, but she did not understand them. She could not give anything her undivided attention for her thoughts were on the way with the Captain, and she was fighting against the unhappiness that threatened to overpower her. ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent

... the events are so great that they overpower the persons and prevent nice discrimination ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... Government sit up, it is an elementary consideration in governing a country like India, which must be administered for the benefit of the people at large, that the counsels of those who resort to it for the sake of making money should be judiciously weighed and not allowed to overpower the rest. They are welcome guests here, as a matter of course, but it has been found best to restrain their influence. Thus the rights of plantation laborers, factory operatives, and the like, have been ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... organizations—some on account of the repeal of the Missouri compromise, but a much larger number in consequence of the efforts of the central Government at Washington, by what was considered by them an abuse of civil trust, and by military interference, to overpower the settlers in Kansas, denying them the right of self-government, and an attempt arbitrarily and surreptitiously to impose upon the inhabitants against their will a fraudulent Constitution. It was this large contribution of free-thinking and independent Democrats, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... seems to take a somewhat different view of the passage. He says, "In this speech of Brutus, Shakespeare gives a fine description of the unsettled state of the mind when the will is hesitating about the perpetration of a great crime, and when the passions are threatening to overpower, and eventually do overpower, the reason ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... Beaten, they drew 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: ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... 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

... deeply ensnared by a heavenly queen, in one day was completely shipwrecked in faith; thus those enticing women, by their power, overcame the Brahman ascetics; how much more may ye, by your arts, overpower the resolves of the king's son; strive therefore after new devices, let not the king fail in a successor to the throne; women, though naturally weak, are high and potent in the way of ruling men. What may not their arts accomplish in promoting in men a lustful desire?" ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... what I cannot exactly see, Sir John. An armed guard remains in our room all night. But, in the first place, he might be himself in the plot, and if not, the slaves would almost certainly overpower him and kill him, as a preliminary to the work of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... if, instead of stopping and firing at a distance beyond that which at their slugs were effective, they were to charge down upon the English and fire their pieces when they reached within a few yards of them, they would overpower them at once by their enormous superiority of numbers. At ten paces distant a volley of slugs is as effective as a Snider bullet, and the whole of the native troops would have bolted the instant such a charge was made. In the open such tactics might not be possible, as the Sniders could be discharged ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... not seek to penetrate, and it did not matter. Once the little ones were safe with their friends he should have plenty of time to think about himself. Then he would be free to lie down in some quiet spot and sleep away some of the weakness and weariness which every moment threatened to overpower him. Sleep! oh, if he could only sleep until the racking pains in his chest were better! Sleep—sleep—sleep! and perhaps it might even be permitted him not to wake at all until he had reached that land whose inhabitants ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... me a certain awe. I discovered in a moment why the orator of the hustings is so deferential to the mob. You may despise every individual member of your audience, but these despised individuals, in their capacity of a collective body, overpower you. I addressed the people with the most unfeigned respect. When I began, too, I found what a dreadful thing it is to hear your own voice inhabiting the silence. You are related to your voice, and yet divorced from it. It is you, and yet ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... that the enemy was gaining. We had held our own up till this time, but barely. Gerda's lips tightened, and she had to meet the pull of Bertric and Phelim, lest they should overpower us. I did my best and she knew it, and kept the balance for a while, until I must ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... the result of the Germanic conquest was totally different; the Celtic language reappeared there no more than in England. It has only survived in the extreme west.[39] But in France the Germanic idiom did not overpower the Latin; the latter persisted, so much so that the French tongue has remained a Romance language. This is owing to two great causes. Firstly, the Germans came to France in much smaller numbers than to England, and those that remained had ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... that upon hearing this, he would know that his friends were without. Roger listened anxiously for the password from his new guard; but as it did not come, he concluded that Cuitcatl had not been able to bribe him, and that he must himself overpower ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... overpower the man," I said, making a sign to Jan, and we all three threw ourselves upon him, and prevented him drawing his knife, when he would, I suspect, have run amuck among us, as the Malays ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston

... people. A soko alive was believed to be a good charm for rain; so one was caught, and the captor had the ends of two fingers and toes bitten off. The soko or gorillah always tries to bite off these parts, and has been known to overpower a young man and leave him without the ends of fingers and toes. I saw the nest of one: it is a poor contrivance; no more architectural skill shown than in the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... fascinating to 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 ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... 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

... conversation for the purpose of learning his present feelings and convictions. He professed a hope that God had forgiven his sins and would accept him at last; said that no doubt it would be better for him to go then than be pardoned and return to the world once more, for, in that case, his appetite might overpower him again and he do other horrid deeds. Still, it was hard to die in the ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... 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, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... that all was over if he 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 a price on his head; and at last he thought ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... make you a camphor-bag," said my mother, "that ought to overpower any faint smell, and it is ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... his allies the Kalda, and for having allowed Bit-Yakin to be destroyed: his own brother Khalludush sided with the malcontents, threw Shutruk-nakhunta into prison, and proclaimed himself king. This time the Ninevites, thinking that Elam was certain to intervene, sought how they might finally overpower Merodach-baladan before this interference could prove effectual. The feudal constitution of the Blamite monarchy rendered, as we know, the mobilisation of the army at the opening of a war a long and difficult task: weeks ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... hearers and judges was not a whit less hearty and genuine than his curses on their cowardice in postponing any attack or risk of fighting until the arrival of militia, or soldiers, or help of some kind, in strength to overpower the little band in the armory, to make resistance useless, and an attack, if that was necessary, safe enough to secure some valiant man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... Pleasurable excitement, therefore with the accompanying idea of an external cause, is love, and therefore love may be excessive. Again, desire is greater as the emotion from which it springs is greater. Inasmuch, therefore, as an emotion may overpower the other actions of a man, so also the desire which springs from this emotion may also overpower the other desires, and may therefore exist in the same excess which we have shown (in the preceding proposition) that pleasurable ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... give these Hungarians—who would be only too glad to quench their present rage in German blood—a chance to break your bones. Have you any arms to compel them to show you the wagons and their contents? And even if you were armed, the soldiers would overpower you, for most of you would run away as soon as a fight broke out, and the balance of you would be taken to the calaboose. I will do you the favor, however, to tell you all about those wagons. Do you want to ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... hours the flaring torches began to burn out, and drowsiness to overpower the strongest heads. Most of the robbers rolled themselves up in the rugs, and covering their heads, went to sleep. A few still sat with their backs to the wall, nodding drowsily or leaning on one side, and too stupefied with opium and hemp ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... prisoners to be all brought upon deck, and disarmed, and at once forced into their own boats, and obliged to row away from the vessel; for he knew that, were his men once to begin to plunder, and to fall upon the liquors, the Spaniards, even if unarmed, would be able to rise and overpower them. ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must 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 men, poets, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... of, gain the better of, gain the best of, gain the upper hand, gain the ascendancy, gain the whip hand, gain the start of; distance; surpass &c (superiority) 33. defeat, conquer, vanquish, discomfit; euchre; overcome, overthrow, overpower, overmaster, overmatch, overset^, override, overreach; outwit, outdo, outflank, outmaneuver, outgeneral, outvote; take the wind out of one's adversary's sails; beat, beat hollow; rout, lick, drub, floor, worst; put down, put to flight, put to the rout, put hors de combat [Fr.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... and unscrupulous efforts of our opponents—their shameless resort to every species of fraud, violence, and corruption—their importation of foreign, perjured voters, and the lavish distribution of the public money—might possibly overpower the legitimate voice of the majority of the citizens of New York. But gloriously have these fears been dispelled. Nobly have the Whigs of the great metropolis done their duty. Gladly does old Massachusetts respond to ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... game. It is much more a matter of sleight than strength. A man must be cautious, wary, cool, 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 is the only thing I ever did so well ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... Eagle was seen to be in a mass of swirling, tumbling waves which seemed anxious to overpower ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... is an encouragement of good manners on its part:—"I behave myself orderly." Just at those points, scholarship attains something of a religious colour. And in that place, religion, religious system, its claim to overpower one, presented itself in a way of which even the least serious by nature could not be unaware. Their great church, its customs and traditions, formed an element in that esprit de corps into which the boyish mind throws itself so readily. Afterwards, in ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... amid the aisles of mossy-trunked trees, plucking the flowers that carpeted the earth; now digging for ground-nuts, now turning over the leaves for acorns; sometimes they would watch the nibbling squirrel as he nimbly sprang from tree to tree, or overpower, with their boisterous laughter, the gushing melody of the bobolink; they mocked the querulous cat-bird and the cawing crow, started at the swift winging of the shy blackbird, and stood still to listen to the sweet song of the clear-throated thrush; now ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams

... and I must say I don't feel jist altogether right neither. Ever so many things rise right up in my mind, not one arter another, but all together like, so that I can't take 'em one by one and reason 'em down, but they jist overpower me by numbers. You ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... doin' a heap o' thinkin'. If the ol' man killed Dick, Barbie would shoot herself; if any one stopped the ol' man that one would take on weight exceedin' fast, unless he crippled the of man first. I finally made up my mind that I would try to overpower the ol' man without hurtin' him, an' ol' Cast Steel was built like a grizzly. I didn't enjoy that walk as much as some I've took. When we got close to the figger lyin' in the trail we all walked a little crouchy. It looked quite a little like Dick; but when ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... fore-topsail-halliard was started and the yard slid slowly down the mast, leaving the topgallant-sail and royal fully set above it. "By Jove, I have it!" he suddenly continued, slapping his thigh energetically. "Yonder brig is in possession of a cargo of slaves who have somehow been allowed to rise and overpower her crew! Yes, by heaven, that must be the explanation of it! At all events we will run down and see. Blow, good breeze, blow!" and he whistled energetically after the manner of seamen in ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... first, which in the end may choke the seed of grace in your heart. If you are rich, the pleasure which wealth may purchase, or love of the wealth itself, may become the bitter root, which in its maturity may overpower all spiritual life within you, and leave only chaff, to be driven away in the great day of the Lord. Watch and pray: these cares and pleasures present themselves at first in humble and submissive guise; it is by their gradual growth that they are enabled to inflict a deadly injury. Their roots, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... a considerable fortune of her own, proposes to sell an estate. "Pray think," he writes, "what will happen to us. If the same ill fortune shall continue to pursue us, what will happen to our unhappy boy? I cannot write any more. My tears fairly overpower me; I should be sorry to make you as sad as myself. I will say so much. If my friends do their duty by me, I shall not want for money; if they do not, your means will not save me. I do implore you, by all our troubles, do not ruin the poor lad. Indeed he is ruined enough already. ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... von Doo, pays the customary Sunday-morning visit to Trenck's cell, and while he is carefully examining every nook to assure himself that the captive nobleman has not been endeavoring to make a pathway to liberty, Trenck will suddenly overpower him, deprive him of his sword, and rush past him out of the cell. At the door he will be met by the soldier Nicolai, who is in our confidence, and will not seem to notice his escape. Once over the palisades, he will find a horse, which we have placed in ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... 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

... 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 ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... was busy with a fresh scheme, nothing short of a concerted insurrection of all the captives in Algiers, numbering about 25,000, who were to overpower the city, and to plant the Spanish flag on its towers. His measures seem to have been taken with sufficient prudence and foresight to give them a fair chance of success, bold as the idea was, but treachery as usual caused ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... generosity makes me mad; I know you repine inwardly at Presto's absence; you think he has broken his word of coming in three months, and that this is always his trick; and now Stella says she does not see possibly how I can come away in haste, and that MD is satisfied, etc. An't you a rogue to overpower me thus? I did not expect to find such friends as I have done. They may indeed deceive me too. But there are important reasons (Pox on this grease, this candle tallow!) why they should not.(24) I have ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... excitement, fell asleep. The heat and the waiting seemed to overpower him. He did not know how long he had slept, but he was awakened by the sharp call of a trumpet, and when he sprang to his feet Warner told him ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler

... justly described as, in part at least, "un memoire justificatif." Nevertheless, there are passages, such as that which describes the first view of Constantinople, where Villehardouin's feelings seize upon his imagination, and, as it were, overpower him. In general he writes with a grave simplicity, sometimes with baldness, disdaining ornament, little sensible to colour or grace of style; but by virtue of his clear intelligence and his real grasp of ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... the 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 ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... long as it lasted, it effectually prevented the Emperor and his general from acquiring a footing on the Baltic, or effecting a landing in Sweden. But if they could succeed in dissolving this union, and especially securing the friendship of the Danish king, they might hope to overpower the insulated force of Sweden. The dread of the interference of foreign powers, the insubordination of the Protestants in his own states, and still more the storm which was gradually darkening along the whole of Protestant Germany, inclined ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... day of her meeting with Eugene—Laura had been revolving in her mind the possibility of escape, and again and again had she been compelled to acknowledge that escape was impossible. At night, lest sleep should overpower their senses, her untiring spies had barred the doors that led from the anteroom with their beds. Sometimes Laura had proposed to bribe them; but in the event of success with the women, a watchman kept guard at the head of the staircase; and at the entrance ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... produce upon them witchcrafts, charms, against which these helpless slaves are wholly defenceless; they are, in fact, enchanted, brought under subjection, reduced to a condition of dreadful vassalage. Such mysterious beings overpower others with the sceptre and the glory of a superior nature,—acting upon them at times like the torpedo which electrifies or paralyzes the fisherman, at other times like a dose of phosphorous which stimulates life and accelerates its ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... 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

... there 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 ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... later a plot concerted between the American prisoners and their friends outside was discovered just in time. With tools supplied by traitors they were to work their way out of their quarters, overpower the guard at the nearest gate, set fire to the nearest houses in three different streets, turn the nearest guns inwards on the town, and shout 'Liberty for ever!' as an additional signal to the storming-party that was to be waiting to confirm their success. Carleton ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... lake-head. There was no tavernous village of Rangeley; that would have been too great a contrast, after the forest and the lakes, where loons are the only disturbers of silence,—incongruity enough to overpower utterly the ringing of woodland music in our hearts. Rangeley was a townless township, as the outermost township should be. We had, however, learnt from Killgrove, feller of forests, that there was a certain farmer on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... his sufferings greater. When, in the evening, as he sat moodily at his window, he would hear Claudet whistle to his dog, and hurry off in the direction of La Thuiliere, he would say to himself: "He is going to keep an appointment with Reine." Then a feeling of blind rage would overpower him; he felt tempted to leave his room and follow his rival secretly—a moment afterward he would be ashamed of his meanness. Was it not enough that he had once, although involuntarily, played the degrading part of a spy! What satisfaction could he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... were not observed, he said, "You are aware that the two parties in this country are differently disposed towards you. The day after to-morrow the officers of the regiment in Talcaguana will give you a farewell ball, when they intend to overpower the Russian officers, and take them prisoners. I have adopted this method of making you acquainted with the design; be on your guard." With these words he disappeared among the high shrubs. As soon as my companions came up, I took Mendiburu ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... 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

... acidulated pleasantly with lemon juice or vinegar, is the proper medium of cooking. The addition of a slice or two of onion and carrot, a sprig of parsley, a stalk of celery, with aromatic herbs or spices, provided they be not used so freely as to overpower the delicate savor of the fish, is thought to ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill

... 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 think, being got ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... 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 and ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... life is now controlled—that the one who really ministers must have something of the servant in his make-up. We 'stoop to conquer' in humanitarianism, as well as in other love. And Leon could not stoop. We are both masterful in a way, but his mastery would overpower mine, and crush it out. I could not be free to live as I have chosen, if he had any control over me, and yet, strangely enough, I once believed I owed all my ideas of helpfulness to him. I know, now, it was the dear mother ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... the assailants should be for the most part on foot, but I think it more likely that they will be mounted, and however fast this lumbering carriage might go, they could easily keep up with it. Fight as hard as we may, the carriage must be overtaken if they are in sufficient force to overpower us. I should think that it would be well that you should warn Mademoiselle de Pointdexter that we hear the road is not very safe, and that, if there is trouble, she is on no account to attempt to leave the carriage. As long as she remains there she ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... scheme 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

... 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 ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... 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 ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... 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 ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... they had repeatedly received on 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 monarch had ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... before the child can read for himself. Strong-minded, courageous little boys will love to hear of giants and ogres, and will revel in adventures that may terrify their more delicate sisters. George hates the fierce foes that Jack the Giant-Killer meets, and dreams of the time when he can overpower and slay his own ogres. Alice listens tremblingly, and when she goes to her little bed at night lies in fear and trembling, while hideous faces leer at her from out the shadowed recesses. George never wearies of our oldest poem, Beowulf, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... gave up the point, foiled by her evasions, disarmed by her flattery; and was obliged to rest satisfied with the conviction that where the present pleasure of those she loved was at stake, her kindness did sometimes overpower ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... except Pandaguan. He grew very bold and answered that the shark was as big as the gods, and that since he had been able to overpower it he would also be able to conquer the gods. Then Captan, hearing this, struck Pandaguan with a small thunderbolt, for he did not wish to kill him but merely to teach him a lesson. Then he and Maguayan ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller

... Lisle said. "The Ashantis have crossed the river, somewhere, and are now attacking the convoy. They will not, of course, overpower it; but they will continue to follow it up till they get near camp, and there is little chance of our being able to rejoin them ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... have been about the eleventh hour, when a strong inclination for sleep began to overpower me. My companion, thereupon, advised me to repeat some sentences from the Koran, which assisted me to retain my consciousness. All at once it seemed to become lively overhead; the ropes creaked, there were steps upon the deck, and several voices were plainly distinguishable. We remained, a ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... 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 shall sing ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... 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 carried off ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... Ulstermen, and bid them come henceforward to look after their drove for I can defend their fords no longer. For surely it is not fair fight nor equal contest for any man for the Morrigan to oppose and overpower him and Loch to wound and pierce him."[6] And weariness of heart and weakness overcame him, and he gave ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... out," continued 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 those eager people. And I'm proud that I sold ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... little over us one took his stand; The other lighted on the opposing hill; So that the troop were in the midst contain'd. 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,' exclaimed Sordello, 'as a guard Over the vale, 'gainst 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 ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... into the sewer was even more securely bolted; besides, there was a great stone door at the foot of the passage. The keys to these two doors were never out of the possession of William Spantz; one of his guards held the key to the stairway door. His only chance lay in his ability to suddenly overpower two men and make off by way of the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... nature occurred in Utrecht until the end of the year, when a determined and secret conspiracy was discovered, having for its object to overpower the garrison and get bodily possession of Colonel John Ogle, the military commander of the town. At the bottom of the movement were the indefatigable Dirk Kanter and his friend Heldingen. The attempt was easily suppressed, and the two were banished from the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... not know the eleventh commandment you white-livered cowards, who think you are lost when there is no leader to put himself at your head? Do you not know the eleventh commandment, saying that he who trusts in God and fights well will overpower his enemies? But you will never overpower your enemies; you do not trust in God, and hence ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... 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 ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... our artillery on whatever the light revealed. 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 an ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... 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 studying ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... therefore, of the facts of the catastrophe which was to overpower poor little Fly and injure Dr. Maybright, she rushed off to find Polly. Polly was feeling intensely happy, playing with and fondling her sweet little baby sister, when Flower, pale and excited, rushed into the room. Nurse, ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... there anything in the law that could hold her, a girl, responsible for his debts? It was surely only a matter of days before she could make her escape and meanwhile she would try not to let disgust overpower her reason. She was not sorry to be asked to see the abode of the spider, in the center of which he sat and watched the approach from any direction of those who dragged themselves of necessity into his web. Let him tell what he would about her father. She ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... it there, and 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 the death of him who shall so have offended. Full sorrowful were the Infantes of ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... her husband. His worship might perhaps have explained himself more largely had not the doctor given him a timely wink; for this wise and good man was fearful of making such a discovery all at once to Amelia, lest it should overpower her, and luckily the justice's wife was not well enough acquainted with the matter to say anything more on it than barely to assure the lady that she joined in her ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... one; and a victory gained by this kind of fighting they did not account honourable, but more like a disgrace than a glory. Indeed, it was considered not only a poor, but a most shameful exploit for two men to overpower one. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... essential 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, the flower would be instantly ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... more fascinated by it, that in no time she had finished reading sixteen whole chapters. But aroused as she was to a state of rapture by the diction, what remained even of the fascination was enough to overpower her senses; and though she had finished reading, she nevertheless continued in a state of abstraction, and still kept on gently recalling the text to mind, and humming ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Remigius heard this in his retreat, to which, as has been said, he had retired; being oppressed by the consciousness of his acts, or perhaps letting the dread of false accusation overpower his reason, he ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... Miss Leigh this morning," he said. "I'll ask her to come out here with Innocent as soon as possible. I won't break the news of YOU to them yet—it would quite overpower Miss Leigh—it ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... no 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

... attempted by combined elements and forces of the most hellish 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 ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... watched him, and reported what was going on in the camp of the new Wallenstein. Twice the Jacobins attempted to avert the peril. They invited Dumouriez to Paris, that he might place himself at their head and overpower the Girondin majority, and they employed men to assassinate him. At last they sent the minister of war, accompanied by four deputies, to arrest him. There was to have been a fifth, but he did not arrive in time, and his absence saved France. For Dumouriez seized the envoys of the Convention, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... this state of affairs misled Paul into the belief that there was no justice in heaven or earth, no hope for Israel, no reward and no punishment, that the balance of justice was destroyed. It is quite natural that under such circumstances such a scepticism should overpower young and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... his voice being 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 gang. He only wished ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston

... happened to be a guest-friend[13] of Cyrus, and, being pressed by an adverse faction at home, came to him, and asked him for two thousand mercenary troops, and three months' pay for them, representing that he would thus be enabled to overpower his enemies. Cyrus granted him four thousand, and six months' pay, desiring him not to terminate the strife until he should consult him. Thus another body of troops was clandestinely ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon

... 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

... afforded to them. Mr. Ebenier did not intend to give them any such opportunity; therefore he remained on board. He went farther than this. The robbers might come on board while he was there alone, overpower him, and thus regain their plunder. The steward kept a revolver in his carpet-bag; for, being a man of varying fortunes, he was liable at any time to be in a situation to need such a weapon. He took the pistol from the bag, loaded it, and put it into his pocket. It was his duty, ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... his Prince, though deformed by the enchantments of the wicked. I knew the evils that surrounded thee; and although I was unable to attend thy council, yet I prayed in secret to Him who bestoweth at the noonday, that He would avert from my royal master the misfortunes which threatened to overpower him. Allah heard my prayer as I lay prostrate in my cell; and the genius Bahoudi appearing, commanded me to seek thee in the forest of Tarapajan, whither thy wayward fortune should lead thee. 'O genius,' replied ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... of his trial arrived, our hero was, notwithstanding his utmost caution and prudence, convicted and sentenced to be hanged by the neck. He now suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower him, and 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... where we can be active and useful; all the self-denials and all the penances on earth will fail to deliver us from an evil-omened destiny, if it be determined to persecute us. Let me sit still in idleness and serve as a spectacle for the world, and it will overpower me and crush me. But find me some peaceful employment, where I can go steadily and unweariedly on doing my duty, and I shall be able to bear the eyes of men, when I need not shrink ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... upon a sufficient purification of the air, by means of large blazing fires of odoriferous wood, in the vicinity of the healthy as well as of the sick, and also upon an appropriate manner of living, so that the putridity might not overpower the diseased. In conformity with notions derived from the ancients, he depended upon bleeding and purging, at the commencement of the attack, for the purpose of purification; ordered the healthy to wash themselves frequently with vinegar or wine, to sprinkle ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... typical epileptic anomalies—asymmetry, 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 committed ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... the Syrian forces would ultimately overpower him, sent an embassy to Rome to invoke protection. It was a long journey in those times. A century and a half later it took Saint Paul six months to make it. The conquests of the Romans were known throughout ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... other lifts him up again. Woe to him that is alone, if he fall, and there be not another to raise him up. 11. Likewise, if two lie down together, they become warm; but how can one grow warm alone? 12. Moreover, if a man would overpower the single one, two can keep him at bay, and a threefold cord ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... 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, avarice, ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... to me one which circumstances overpowering morality and decency might at any time call into existence. It is known to have arisen in the native Indian army.' The question now is, what are the circumstances that overpower morality and decency, and so produce polyandry, with its necessary consequences, when it is a recognised institution—the absence of the patriarchal family, and the recognition of kinship through women? Any circumstances which cause great scarcity of women will conduce ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... vessels laden with engines of battery, chariots, corn, and other military stores, as if they did not intend to manage the war by piecemeal and in parts as heretofore, but to drive the Greeks altogether and at once out of all Sicily. And indeed it was a force sufficient to overpower the Siceliots, even though they had been at perfect union among themselves, and had never been enfeebled by intestine quarrels. Hearing that part of their subject territory was suffering devastation, they forthwith made toward the Corinthians with great fury, having Asdrubal and Hamilcar for their ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... chieftains of the various territories all acknowledged the supremacy of a descendant of Cunedda. For purposes of war they combined together, and as the country which they occupied was hilly and easily defended, the northern English discovered that they too must unite amongst themselves if they were to overpower the united resistance of ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner



Words linked to "Overpower" :   clutch, raise, elicit, steamroll, lock, kill, beat, trounce, provoke, enkindle, steamroller, shell, benight, arouse, devastate, get hold of, fire, vanquish, beat out, crush, sweep over, whelm, knock out, kindle, evoke, stagger, seize



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