OVERBEAR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Overbear

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verb

Overbear v. t. (past overbore; past part. overborne; pres. part. overbearing)

To bear down or carry down, as by excess of weight, power, force, etc.; to overcome; to suppress. "The point of reputation, when the news first came of the battle lost, did overbear the reason of war." "Overborne with weight the Cyprians fell." "They are not so ready to overbear the adversary who goes out of his own country to meet them."

To domineer over; to overcome by insolence.

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Etymology of 'Overbear'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Overbear" Quotes from Famous Books

... attracted the eye of the crowd. He would view the people more attentively than the sports themselves, as affording him more strange sights than the actor: and for the writers, he would think they told their story to a deaf ass. For what voices are able to overbear the din with which our theatres resound? You would think the groves of Garganus, or the Tuscan Sea, was roaring; with so great noise are viewed the shows and contrivances, and foreign riches: with which the actor ...

— The Works of Horace • Horace

... consequence, to engage in enterprises which my better judgment condemned. I fain wish that among the other "Confessions" with which our literature is charged, we had the bona fide "Confessions of a Leader," with examples of the cases in which, though he seems to overbear, he is in reality overborne, and actually follows, though he appears to lead. Honest Sir William Wallace, though seven feet high, and a hero, was at once candid and humble enough to confess to the canons of Hexham, ...

— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

Words linked to "Overbear" : dominate, press, bear, squeeze, contract