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Overset   Listen
verb
Overset  v. t.  (past & past part. overset; pres. part. oversetting)  
1.
To turn or tip (anything) over from an upright, or a proper, position so that it lies upon its side or bottom upwards; to upset; as, to overset a chair, a coach, a ship, or a building.
2.
To cause to fall, or to fail; to subvert; to overthrow; as, to overset a government or a plot.
3.
To fill too full. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overset" Quotes from Famous Books



... in order to offer what help was in my power. "Help me," said the poor fellow, as I drew nigh; but, before I could reach the horses, they had turned rapidly round, one of the fore-wheels flew from its axle-tree, the chaise was overset, and the postillion flung violently from his seat upon the field. The horses now became more furious than before, kicking desperately, and endeavouring to disengage themselves from the fallen chaise. As I was hesitating whether to run to the assistance of the postillion, or endeavour ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... both hands, and tried to nurse it as his two aunts nursed it. The infant's weight was considerable; it exceeded Tom's estimate, with the result that, in the desperate process of extracting the baby from the cradle, the cradle had been overset, and now ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... fancied him in his adolescence taking part in one of the frequent revolutions of his continent, but humorously, not homicidally. He would like to alarm the other faction, and perhaps drive it from power, or overset it from its official place, but if he had the say there would be no bringing the vanquished out into the plaza to be shot. He may now have been on his way to France ultimately to study medicine, which seems to be preliminary to a high political career in South America; but in the mean ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... accept. His strength was almost exhausted when he reached the wherry, which was lying at the Temple Stairs according to appointment; and, when he pitched the trunk into it, the weight sank the bow of the boat so low in the water as well-nigh to overset it. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... or rather driven, about a league and a half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us, and plainly bade us expect the coup de grace. In a word, it took us with such a fury that it overset the boat at once; and separating us as well from the boat as from one another, gave its not time hardly to say, "O God!" for we were all ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... these charges true, which I deny, they are no sins, seeing that they would have been done, every one of them, not for my own sake, but for that of the Church, to overset her enemies, to rebuild her tottering walls, to secure her ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... visits." They had two double carrioles, or gigs: the road over which they passed was "steep and rugged beyond description." In returning, the carriole in which Peter Bedford rode struck against a rock at a sharp corner and was overset. Peter Bedford's right shoulder was dislocated, and he otherwise bruised. In conveying him into Christiansand he suffered much from the shaking of the car; but the joint was quickly set by a skilful surgeon; and, in the ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... she put her finger in, somebody spoke to her, and she forgot to take it out, till the pain she felt from one of my bites made her withdraw it rather hastily. The scream she gave so startled the alderman, that he overset the card table upon his lady; the girls jumped up, the boys laughed, I went round and caused a violent ringing: so that they, who before were so desirous that I should do it, were now more desirous I should stand still. The alderman often attempted to speak, but my ringing ...
— The Adventures of a Squirrel, Supposed to be Related by Himself • Anonymous

... so many Americans plaster the walls of their dining-rooms with pictures of overset fruit-baskets and of dead fish with their ugly mouths open; but in "still life" this paradoxical poet sees something full of demoniacal energy. O ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... father on a certain occasion, when the paper was overset, objected to adding two pages, but in a moment of economical inspiration agreed to permit one ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... will besiege Dantzig, besiege Thorn; will plunge, suddenly, like a fiery javelin, into the heart of Poland, and make Poland surrender its claim. Whereupon King Sigismund bestirred himself in earnest; came out with vast clouds of Polish chivalry; overset Albert's 8,000;—who took to eating the country, instead of fighting for it; being indeed in want of all things. One of the gladdest days Albert had yet seen, was when he got the 8,000 ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... had overset the former and defied the latter. His story was of the smoothest. He was a military strategist, he declared, and General Leborge had asked him to investigate the citadel, in order to determine its value as the site for a ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... year, 1640, the Rev. Mr. Andrew Marvell, Lecturer of Hull, sailing over the Humber in company with Madame Skinner of Thornton College and a young beautiful couple who were going to be wedded; a speedy Fate prevented the designed happy union thro' a violent storm which overset the boat and put a period to all their lives, nor were there any remains of them or the vessel ever after found, tho' earnestly sought for ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... from the Marble Arch to Mile End. "My dears," he said to his younger daughters, as they were rattling round the steep downward twists and turns of the great road, "you must sit quite still on these descents, or you do not know where you may go. The least thing would overset us." But Lucy and Sophy soon knew better, and became so intimate with the mountain, under the friendly guidance of their courier, that before the plains were reached, they were in and out, and here and there, and up and down, as ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... of his credentials, Lauriston went to the Admiralty, where St Vincent, the first lord, (albeit no lover of Frenchmen,) received the stranger with a good-humoured shake of the hand, and, on parting with him, made a little speech to the mob, recommending it to them "to take care and not overset ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... day but one brought the Belle Helen herself into port, with the terrible news not only of having been attacked at night by pirates, but also that Sir John Malyoe was dead. For whether it was the sudden fright that overset him, or whether it was the strain of passion that burst some blood-vessel upon his brain, it is certain that when the pirates quitted the Belle Helen, carrying with them the young lady and Barnaby and the travelling-trunks, they ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... let the donkey wander on and turned, bludgeon in hand, to stare; the child and girl with the buckets were running, and every door and window showed startled heads. From within the cottage came uproar screams, stamping, and the crash of furniture overset. ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... straight in, the seas following, reeling after us. They have their own ways, these people of the East. I fancy John had run surf before. At any rate, I knew the water now was shallow and that, perhaps, one could swim ashore if we were overset. I trusted him to make the landing, however, and he did it like a veteran. One plunge through the ultimate white crest, and we were carried up high on the beach, to meet the shouts of my men and to feel their hands grasp the gunwales of ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... little with something else. I can scarcely tell you how I am, for I keep getting a little better and a little worse, and remaining at last just as I were. I was very bad this morning, but have recovered this evening as I generally do, and I really fear that I shall never entirely overset it. I have written to Hessey for Dr. Darling's assistance again today, and I have desired him to forward this letter to you. Drop a line to say that you receive it, and give my kind remembrances to your better half, Mrs. Cunningham. I will try your patience no longer with ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... which the fabulist was wont to mock at his readers. And still more so is this the case with others. "The Horse and the Fly" states one of the unanswerable problems of life in quite a realistic and straightforward way. A fly startles a cab-horse, the coach is overset; a newly-married pair within and the driver, a man with a wife and family, are all killed. The horse continues to gallop off in the loose traces, and ends the tragedy by running over an only child; and there is some ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... blame you for defending him. But tell me candidly, Julia, had he never saved your life, do you think you should have been attached to him as you are?—Believe me, the rude blast that overset your boat was a prosperous gale of love ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... deliverer was an enemy to all persecution. They knew that he came to free us from slavery and Popery, out of a country where a third of the people are contented Catholics under a Protestant government. He came with a part of his army composed of those very Catholics, to overset the power of a Popish prince. Such is the effect of a tolerating spirit; and so much is liberty served in every way, and by all persons, by a manly adherence to its own principles. Whilst freedom is true to itself, everything becomes subject to it, and its very adversaries ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... are numerous boats in the river, and some so small that a child can row them. There are so many that they often come against each other, and are overset. A traveller once passed by a boat where a little girl of seven was rowing, and by accident his boat overset hers. The child fell out of her boat, and her paddle out of her hand; yet she was not the least frightened, only surprised; ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... back. As the Prince held out his arms to catch his sister, such numbers leaped in, that the boat was overset. And in the same instant ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... worked upon on this second morning after the young dog's arrival; and, as was perversely ruled, it was just here that an accident occurred that might well have been judged impossible. The easel, in fact, with its huge canvas, was overset, carrying many things into limbo as they fell; and with the fate that too often pursues the unfortunate, Murphy therefore found himself suddenly buried beneath a mixed assortment of articles to which he had hitherto been strange. To add to the rest, a whole string ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry

... This entirely overset Ellen's gravity, and unluckily she could not get it back again, even though warned by Mrs. Van Brunt that her aunt was coming. Trying only made it worse, and Miss Fortune's entrance was but the signal for a fresh burst of hearty merriment. What ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... thing that halp me noght, Bot onliche of myn oughne thoght. For as it semeth that a belle Lik to the wordes that men telle 1950 Answerth, riht so ne mor ne lesse, To yow, my fader, I confesse, Such will my wit hath overset, That what so hope me behet, Ful many a time I wene it soth, Bot finali no spied it doth. Thus may I tellen, as I can, Wenyng beguileth many a man; So hath it me, riht wel I wot: For if a man wole in a Bot 1960 Which is withoute botme rowe, He moste nedes overthrowe. Riht ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... passions loose within him—despising the very man he thus implored—the boy ruined his own cause. Indignant at the silence of Mr. Plaskwith, and too blinded by his emotions to see that in that silence there was relenting, he suddenly shook the little man with a vehemence that almost overset him, and cried: ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the groves in her garden!—O my friends! are ye all lost to me—must I never, never see ye more!' Tears rushed again to her eyes, and she continued to weep, till an abrupt turn in the road had nearly occasioned the carriage to overset, when, looking up, she perceived another part of the well-known scene around Tholouse, and all the reflections and anticipations, which she had suffered, at the moment, when she bade it last adieu, came with recollected force to her heart. She remembered how anxiously ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... Greece Morea were, and that, by some Earthquake unrooted, loose Morea swam; Or seas from Afric's body had severed And torn the Hopeful promontory's head: This fish would seem these, and, when all hopes fail, A great ship overset, or without sail, Hulling, might (when this was a whelp) be ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... March, land was discovered to the W. It was an island six leagues round, which offered but a bad anchorage. The boats landed with difficulty, and one of them was actually overset in one of their visits and the crew nearly ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge

... could be referred. As a result, too, of the improved correctness of the texts, instead of being satisfied with the general sense of an author, men were able to base edifices of precise argument upon the verbal meaning of passages, in some confidence that their structures would not be overset. ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... letters at this time is not generally lively; there is, he says, "a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may date from poor John's (his brother's) loss. Deaths overset one. Then there's Captain Burney gone. What fun has whist now?" He proceeds, "I am made up of queer points. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against it." The only hope he has, he says, is, "that some pulmonary affection may relieve me." The success which attended ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... then the blueberry bushes on the other side of the narrow wheel-track. She declared at last that if he would not get out and ask she would do it herself, and at this the dry little man jerked the reins in spite of her, and the horse suddenly pulled the carry-all to the right, and seemed about to overset it. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... overset by the premature outbreak of the Balkan war. But she was bent on getting all she could out of it for her side, and dragged France along with her. At the beginning of the Italy-Tripoli war, Izvolsky had written: ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... him shall be seen hovering on the Northern Border, seeking election as National Deputy; but be sternly beckoned away. Dimmer then, far-borne over utmost European lands, in uncertain twilight of diplomacy, he shall hover, intriguing for 'Exiled Princes,' and have adventures; be overset into the Rhine stream and half-drowned, nevertheless save his papers dry. Unwearied, but in vain! In France he works miracles no more; shall hardly return thither to find a grave. Farewell, thou facile sanguine Controller-General, with thy light rash hand, thy suasive mouth of gold: ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confidence. He professed himself more ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... the desolated kitchen from which she had fled in the night. A man stood in the middle of the floor, up to his knees in water, looking round in dismay, though he had begun to pick up some of the overset chairs and utensils. The fireplace, with its interrupted supper arrangements, the dresser, with its plates and pans, its cups and saucers, the closets and cupboards, with their various stores and provisions, were all laid open to the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... So overset was she by the dramatic surprise of his challenging remark, and so enlightened by the sudden perception of it being perfectly characteristic of him, that her manner changed in an instant to a delicate, startled timidity. All the complex sensitiveness of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... made a discovery to me, which, had I known it sooner, would have overset me, and prevented my reading any part of my work.[24] He said that he had almost always had an aversion to poetry, which he regarded as the arrangement of fine words, without any useful meaning or adherence to truth; but that ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... friendship rested upon his skill in preparing a particular brew of toddy, which needed a single oyster simmering in the saucepan to give it its perfection of flavour. About two o'clock of a June morning the spirit lamp on which the saucepan stewed had been overset; neither of the two confederates in drink had their wits about them at the moment, and the house was half burnt and the rest of it ruined by water before the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... of hope, and spoken in that hearty, cheery voice, they almost overset her weakened spirits, and the struggle with tears would not let ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... pelf to individuals to be placed in competition with the essential rights and liberties of the present generation, and of millions yet unborn? Shall a few designing men, for their own aggrandizement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset the goodly fabric we have been rearing, at the expense of so much time, blood, and treasure? And shall we at last become the victims of our own lust of gain? Forbid it, Heaven! Forbid it, all and every State in the Union, by enacting and enforcing efficacious ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... Aurora Borealis, and I supposed it was an interchange of rifle shots. There were flashes like summer lightning; and then all the sky became a whirling confusion of battle that was still largely noiseless. Some of the Central European aeroplanes were certainly charged and overset; others seemed to collapse and fall and then flare out with so bright a light that it took the edge off one's vision and made the rest of the battle disappear as though it had been snatched back out ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... disobey the tyrant's order. From feelings of modesty Kleonike entreated the attendants at the door of his bedchamber to extinguish all the lights, and she then silently in the darkness approached the bed where Pausanias lay asleep. But she stumbled and overset the lamp.[307] He, awakened by the noise, snatched up his dagger, and imagining that some enemy was coming to assassinate him, stabbed the girl with it, wounding her mortally. It is said that after this her spirit would never let Pausanias rest, but nightly ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... was overset a-careening, so that he was reduced to his old Schooner, aboard of which there went about an hundred as bold rogues as ever was hanged, and sailed to the West-Indies, where they took a rich Portugueze ...
— Pirates • Anonymous

... the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset and fell. I remember that—though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know—flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple—a black thing in ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... usual way in cases of carefully planned jewelry robberies. The time was early evening—dinner-time, in fact—and an entrance had been made by the window to Lady Quinton's dressing-room, the door screwed up on the inside, and wires artfully stretched about the grounds below to overset anybody who might observe ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... already saw looming through the mist and foam of the deep. Then it was at last that our boat turned short from its course, and rocked with a motion that became more wild and dizzy: I know not whether it was overset, or the violence of the motion threw me overboard. In my agony and struggle at the thought of a near and terrible death, the waves bore me onward, till I was cast ashore here beneath ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... partly ludicrous, illustrates her tender solicitude for him; and it also shows how the mere idea of an event has, with a person of her genius, the power of the actual occurrence. The coachman chanced to overset and considerably damage the empty family carriage. When told of it, she was indifferent until the idea of danger to her father struck her; then, exclaiming, "My God! had M. Necker been in it, he might have been killed," ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... as is the range of a disk swung from the shoulder when a young man hurleth it, making trial of his force, even so far ran they on; then the mares of Atreus' son gave back, for he ceased of himself to urge them on, lest the whole-hooved steeds should encounter on the track, and overset the well-knit cars, and the drivers fall in the dust in their zeal for victory. So upbraiding Antilochos spake golden-haired Menelaos: "Antilochos, no mortal man is more malicious than thou. Go thy mad way, since falsely have we Achaians called thee wise. Yet even so thou shalt not bear off the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... books, I calculated crops, I attended markets, and, in short, in spite of the devil, the world, and the flesh, I should have been a wise man; but the first year from unfortunately buying bad seed—the second, from a late harvest, we lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." Burns was in the beginning (p. 016) of his twenty-sixth year when he took up his abode at Mossgiel, where he remained for four years. Three things those years and that ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... some first cause. And thus it comes about, that the first principle of motion must arise from that thing which is itself moved by itself; and that can neither have a beginning nor an end of its existence, for otherwise the whole heaven and earth would be overset, and all nature would stand still, and not be able to acquire any force, by the impulse of which it might be first set in motion. Seeing, then, that it is clear, that whatever moves itself is eternal, can there be any doubt that the soul is so? For everything is inanimate which is moved by ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... it all so stoically; she would smile upon him when he made a good hit, as upon an actor on the boards—she would, at times, even condescend to improve some of his compliments upon herself; and when her easy manners had perchance overset him at the very debut of one of his finest speeches, she would begin it again for him; taking up the dropped sentence, and then settle herself into ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... nothing, to wish nothing, to do nothing, but what the present moment brings with it!... Yet I am too proud to think myself unhappy. I just grind my teeth, and let the boat go as pleases wind and waves. Enough that I will not overset it myself." It is plain from this letter that suicide had been in his mind, and, with his antique way of thinking on many subjects, he would hardly have looked on it as a crime. But he was too brave ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... indulging in a feeling of indescribable fear, as I listened to the torrent of profane invective that burst forth continually from the lips of the boatman. Once or twice we were in danger of being overset by the boughs of the pines and cedars which had fallen into the water near the banks. Right glad was I when we reached the opposite shores; but here a new trouble arose: there was yet more untracked wood to cross before we again met the skiff which had ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... be just then milking the cow; and hearing someone speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off her stool, and overset the milk-pail. As soon as she could pick herself up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the parson, and said, 'Sir, sir, the cow is talking!' But the parson said, 'Woman, thou art surely mad!' However, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... least desire to cling to the Bible class, even as an alternative to the shop! No! He was much relieved to be rid of the Bible class. What overset him was the crude illogicality of the new decree, and the shameless tacit admission of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... the village, laughing like a madcap at pranks of a huge Newfoundland dog named Sergeant, the favourite of General Stanley, which, while escorting the young ladies, used to gambol into the cottages, overset furniture and children, and scamper out again amid a general uproar. For though Miss Mary was but sixteen, the starched spinsters decided that she was much too old for such folly; and that, if the General intended to present ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... advanced, and before she arrived at the end of her little journey it was quite dark. When they came within a mile of Mr Arnott's house, the postilion, in turning too suddenly from the turnpike to the cross-road, overset the carriage. The accident, however, occasioned no other mischief than delaying their proceeding, and Cecilia and her maid were helped out of the chaise unhurt. The servants, assisted by a man who was walking upon the road, began lifting it up; and Cecilia, too ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... Grand River, south-east. We left this about eleven a.m., and after reaching our destination all safe, left it about three o'clock p.m. for home, the weather then looking anything but promising. When about four miles from home and from the shore, we were overset by a squall. It came upon us so suddenly that we had no time to do anything; torrents of rain fell at the same time, and there we were, drifting along on the side of the boat (which luckily did not sink) without ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... in farce, struggle is clearly present. Here our sympathy is with people who engage in a not impossible combat—against rather obvious villains who can be unmasked, or against such public opinion or popular conventions as can be overset. The hold of an absurd bit of gossip upon stupid people is firm enough in "Spreading the News"; but fortunately it must yield to facts at last. The Queen and the Knave of Hearts are sufficiently clever, with the ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... July we got into a deep Bay, four Leagues N.W. from the two small Islands before mentioned. But the Night before, in a violent Tornado, our Bark being unable to beat any longer, bore away, which put us in some pain for fear she was overset, as we had like to have been our selves. We anchored on the South West side of the Bay, in fifteen fathom Water, about a Cables length from the shore. Here we were forced to shelter our selves from the violence of the Weather, which was so boisterous ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... the death!" murmured Richard dreamily, as Raynald, throwing his arm round him, led him away; but before they had reached the tent there was a plunging rush and scampering behind them, and John of Dunster came dashing up. "I knew it! I knew it!" he cried. "I knew he would overset spiteful Hamlyn! Hurrah! They can't keep me away now, Richard—now the judgment of Heaven ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... events, the jolting and bumping was past endurance, he had recourse to Larry's shoulder, and shook and pulled, and called to him to go slower, but in vain: at last the wheel struck full against a heap of stones at a turn of the road, the wooden linchpin came off, and the chaise was overset: Lord Colambre was a little bruised, but glad to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... moment the aeropile fell nearly edgewise with her nose down, and seemed to hesitate whether to overset altogether. He stood on his wind-shield wrenching the wheel that swayed up over his head. And then the shock of the second explosion took his ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... forces. The Presbyterians, a numerous and powerful party in the English Parliament, had hitherto taken the lead in opposition to the King; while the Independents and other sectaries, who afterwards, under Cromwell, resumed the power of the sword, and overset the Presbyterian model both in Scotland and England, were as yet contented to lurk under the shelter of the wealthier and more powerful party. The prospect of bringing to a uniformity the kingdoms of England and Scotland in discipline ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... which you enter by withdrawing curtains of scarlet cloth, a colour vividly contrasting with the white shining marble of which the whole Kiosk is formed. It is a favourite diversion of the Pasha himself to row some favourite Circassians in one of the barques and to overset his precious freight in the midst of the lake. As his Highness piques himself upon wearing a caftan of calico, and a juba or exterior robe of coarse cloth, a ducking has not for him the same terrors it would offer to a less eccentric Osmanlee. The fair Circassians shrieking with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various

... it is the twentieth time you have said so," replied the dame; "and without such frequent assurance, I was quite ready to believe that a very trifling matter would overset any scheme of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... perpetual terror that they would be devoured by France; that French ambition would overset the Celestial Balance, and proceed next to eat the British Nation. Stand upon your guard then, one would have said: Look to your ships, to your defences, to your industries; to your virtues first of all,—your VIRTUTES, manhoods, conformities to the Divine Law appointed you; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... do. But sez I, "Folks must be megum even in goodness, Josiah Allen, and in order to set down and hold a half orphan in your arms, you mustn't overset yourself and come down on the floor on top of a hull orphan ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... be done, I saw the sea approaching at some distance, in vast billows covered with foam; I called to the people to haul up the fore-sail, and let go the main-sheet instantly; for I was persuaded that if we had any sail out when the gust reached us, we should either be overset, or lose all our masts. It reached us, however, before we could raise the main tack, and laid us upon our beam-ends; the main tack was then cut for it was become impossible to cast it off; and the main sheet struck down the first lieutenant, bruised ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... mother is not in the least aware—I hope she never may be—of the reasons which force me to this very strange decision. They arise from a painful circumstance, which is attributable to none of our faults; but, having once befallen, they are as fatal and irreparable as that shock which overset honest Alnaschar's porcelain, and shattered all his hopes beyond the power of mending. I write gaily enough, for there is no use in bewailing such a hopeless mischance. We have not drawn the great prize in the lottery, dear Blanche: but I shall be contented enough without it, if you can be so; ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... will not overset, sailing beneath the moon with that Moon-lady for a pilot," he replied heavily. "Had the sun been up, it might have been different. Moreover, the path into a net is always ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... where the river ran with great velocity for half a mile among large stones. Having carried across the principal part of the cargo the people attempted to track the canoes along the edge of the rapid. With the first they succeeded but the other, in which were the foreman and steersman, was overset and swept away by the current. An account of this misfortune was speedily conveyed to the upper end of the portage and the men launched the remaining canoe into the rapid, though wholly unacquainted with the dangers of it. The descent was quickly accomplished and they perceived the bottom of the ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... was visible, tell it me. Yet he looked so much disappointed, that I thought it incumbent upon me, since the blunder must have been my servant's, to do what I could to comfort him. I therefore forced myself forward to talk to him, and pass over the embarrassment but he was modest, and consequently overset, and soon after took ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... confidence in the Via Media, and thought that nothing could overset it, I did not mind laying down large principles, which I saw would go further than was commonly perceived. I considered that to make the Via Media concrete and substantive, it must be much more than ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... smiling; 'it seems that she trusted to making a grand appearance with the remains of yesterday's pudding, and that she was quite overset by the discovery that Ellen and Miss Catharine had been ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cowards," cried Fred; and, raising one foot, he placed it against the door, gave a hard thrust, and started back so suddenly that he nearly overset ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... into whose house they had been carried when the coach overset, ordered them to be decently buried. Little Robert attended at their funeral, but was quite unconscious of his loss, though he sadly cried for that nourishment he would never more receive from the breast of ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley

... where I had landed. My next business was to secure the arms, which I delivered to Teppahoo to take charge of for the night. One musket and two bayonets were missing, which they said were lost by the canoe in which they came from Tethuroa having overset. I then took leave of Teppahoo who presented us with a plentiful supply of provisions, and we proceeded with the deserters towards the boat but, as the wind had increased and it rained hard, I determined to remain ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... you can't do it right, young gent," said a rough-looking elderly sailor, who was coiling down the rope which had nearly overset ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... said he, "that Paul is all that you represent him to be; but why all these precautions? Only, mark my words, the Duke has an infallible way of detecting, or rather of preventing, any attempt at imposition. It is ever thus, the most trivial circumstance will overset the best laid plans, and the inevitable destroy the combinations of the most ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... the Victoire, but by a Shot betwixt Wind and Water, he was obliged to sheer off, and running his Guns, &c. on one Side, bring her on the careen to stop his Leak; this being done with too much Precipitation, she overset, and every Soul was lost: His Comrade seeing this Disaster, threw out all his small sails, and endeavour'd to get off, but the Victoire wrong'd her, and oblig'd her to renew the Fight, which she did with great Obstinacy, and made Monsieur ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe

... They immediately consented, and a canoe was launched for their use. They went all on board, being eight in number, but not being used to a vessel that required so even a balance, they unfortunately overset her in the surf: No life however was lost, but it was thought advisable that half of them should wait for another turn. Mr Banks, Dr Solander, Tupia, and Tayeto embarked again, and without any farther accident arrived safely at the ship, well pleased with the good nature ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... after the equinox, while the army was in Berber, and afterwards subsided more than it had risen. We find the sky every day more and more overcast; distant thunder and lightning, accompanied with violent squalls, (which have overset my tent twice,) are, within a few days, frequent, and drops of rain ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English

... but very little mischief, or cause but very little pain, to such bodies; and that this is true, I have myself experienced at the age of seventy. I happened, as is often the case, to be in a coach, which going at a pretty smart rate, was overset, and in that condition drawn a considerable way by the horses, before means could be found to stop them; whence I received so many shocks and bruises, that I was taken out with my head and all the rest of my body terribly battered, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro

... would be so furious, and rise so high—spreading far and wide over all the plain country—that we should never be able to know when we were in the channel of the river and when not, and should certainly be cast away, overset, or run aground so often that it would be impossible to proceed by a river so ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... thou, while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine acorn ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... hours were spent in getting the whole of them over; an hour more was employed in transporting the baggage; and it was near sunset before the canoe returned, when Demba Sego and myself embarked in this dangerous passage-boat, which the least motion was like to overset. The king's nephew thought this a proper time to have a peep into a tin box of mine that stood in the fore part of the canoe; and in stretching out his band for it, he unfortunately destroyed the equilibrium, and overset the canoe. Luckily we were not far advanced, ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... they came within about a bow-shot of the booth of Volero, the sound of a slight scuffle was heard from within, and the light of the lamp became very dim and wavering, as if it had been overset; and in a moment went out altogether. But its last glimmering ray shewed a tall sinewy figure making out of the door and bounding at a great pace up the street toward the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... melting away of skirmish points; the sudden gaps here and there; the sickening incurving of what a moment before had been a straight line—all these he saw in all their fatal significance. But even at this moment, coming upon a hasty barricade of overset commissary wagons, he stopped to glance at a familiar figure he had seen but an hour ago, who now seemed to be commanding a group of collected stragglers and camp followers. Mounted on a wheel, with a revolver in each hand and a bowie knife between his teeth—theatrical even in his paroxysm of undoubted ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... It must be broken to him, before the town-crier knows it. I dine with the dear fellow to- morrow and next day—Christmas Eve and Christmas Day—but it would never do to spoil his feast-days. He always worries about me, and moddley-coddleys in the merest trifles. The news is sure to overset him. How on earth shall this be ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... addressed to him. But after carefully studying the papers, to catch what this offensive tone of the Neapolitan Minister was, I have found it so evanescent that I really cannot discern it, and suppose there must be something in the manner, or in Lord Napier's state of mind at the time, which overset him. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... drove us out of the way of all human commerce. In this distress, one morning, there was a cry of "Land!" and almost at the same moment the ship struck against a sandbank. We took to a boat, and worked towards the land; but before we could reach it, a raging wave came rolling astern of us, and overset the boat. We were all thrown into the sea, and out of fifteen who were on board, none escaped but myself. I managed, somehow, to scramble to shore, and clambered up the cliffs, and sat me down on the grass half-dead. Night coming on me, I took ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... "help me." And they thrust the oak table forward, and overset it in front of the door, throwing the chairs and stools on either side, that men ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... the first woman has altered her mind, nor the last,' Mr. Pomeroy retorted with an oath. 'You may be amazing sure of that, my lord.' And muttering something about a woman and a fool being near akin, he spurned a dog out of his way, overset a chair, and strode cursing ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... see little or nothing to be done in the way of building a boat proper to swim and ply—I foreboded a dismal issue to our adventure, even should we succeed in separating this block from the main. In fine, what I feared was that the weight of the schooner would overset the ice and drown ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... surrounded him so, that he was forced to retreat into the ball-room. He was very near being drowned t'other night going from Ranelagh to Vauxhall, and politeness of Lord Cathcart's, who, stepping on the side of the boat to lend his arm, overset it, and both fell into the water up to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... to his dear relative's assistance, and Mrs. Merillia endeavoured to rise and to lean upon his anxious arm. After a struggle, however, in which the Prophet took part and two chairs were overset, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... ship: I knew they had too much sense to be amused with a story that the ship was to join me, when she was not in sight from the hills. I was at first doubtful whether I should tell the real fact, or say that the ship had overset and sunk, and that only we were saved: the latter appeared to me to be the most proper and advantageous to us, and I accordingly instructed my people, that we might all agree in one story. As I expected, enquiries were ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... Todd had told me one day that Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading; she had also made dark reference to his having "spells" of some unexplainable nature. I could not help wondering what errand had brought him out in search of me. There was something quite charming in his appearance: it was a face thin and delicate ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... bright fellow, and I like him,' said Pancks. 'Something has gone amiss with him to-day. Have you any idea of any cause that can have overset him?' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... constantly on the staff of the Canadas, and assigned as a principal reason the advantage of an officer of that rank being stationed in the Upper Province, that he does not conceive himself at liberty to overset an arrangement which he has been two years soliciting the means to carry into effect, and the absolute necessity of which he is highly impressed with. In reply to an observation of mine, that you regretted the inactive prospect before you, and looked with envy on those employed in Spain and ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... willfully ignorant professor, or him that is afraid to know more, for fear of the cross. He is for picking and choosing of truth, and loveth not to hazard his all for that worthy name by which he would be called. When he is at any time overset by arguments, or awakenings of conscience, he uses to heal all by—I was not brought up in this faith; as if it were unlawful for Christians to know more than hath been taught them at first conversion. There are many Scriptures that lie against his man, as the mouths ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... you overset the pillar, I will clap the dome on my shoulders and hale it down to ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France

... you! You women are always thinking of men's being in liquor. Why, you do not suppose a man is overset by a bottle? I am sure of this—that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a famous good thing for ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... from him as best he might with his hand, albeit he had little strength thereof. But presently there issued a sudden flaw of wind out of the air and falling on the sea, smote upon the chest and drove it with such violence against Landolfo's plank that the latter was overset and he himself perforce went under water. However, he struck out and rising to the surface, aided more by fear than by strength, saw the plank far removed from him, wherefore, fearing he might be unable to reach it again, he made for the chest, which was pretty near him, and laying himself flat ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... doors; to have carried every hog into captivity, and depopulated every hen-roost on the face of the earth with perfect impunity—but this wanton attack upon one of the most gallant and irreproachable heroes of modern times is too much even for me to digest, and has overset, with a single puff, the patience of the historian and the forbearance of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... effect; he then returned to the shore, and overcame Mrs. Pattison's repugnance to enter the boat. She stepped in, and he again rowed about half a mile, when suddenly he was seen by the men on shore to rise in the boat, and in an instant it was overset, and both were plunged in the lake. Mr. Pattison sunk at once, but his wife's clothes buoyed her up for a considerable time; ineffectually, however, for none of the bearers of the chaises a porteurs could swim; her cries were in vain, and she, too, perished. How the accident arose, none ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... kind were generally diffused, people would cease to imagine that the human constitution was so badly contrived, that a state of general health could be overset by every trifle; for instance, by a little cold; or that the recovery of it lay concealed in a few drops, or a pill. Did they better understand the nature of chronic diseases, and the causes which produce them, ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... become familiar: but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides and periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses; by all which the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (unmiraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed? Such a Minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious Course of ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... wondered what excuse he could make to talk with her. As it chanced fortune favoured him, for when she was near him a snake glided across the path in front of the girl's feet, causing her to spring backwards in alarm and overset the gourd of water. He came forward, and picked ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard

... and tables overset; The wash-tub spilled, and the floor all wet; And here and there in cinders black, The great ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... footsteps had died away, "now I may laugh in peace! I don't congratulate you on the tempers of your future relations, Denys." But Denys was too utterly overset to attempt defence or condemnation. Great tears welled up into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as fast as she wiped them away. She was glad that Gertrude took her side, but she felt that Gertrude's own vagaries had helped not a ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... wealth there broke in upon the Church a great deal of luxury and high living, on the pretence of hospitality; while others made purchases, and left great estates, most of which we have seen melt away. And with this overset of wealth and pomp, that came on men in the decline of their parts and age, they, who were now growing into old age, became lazy and negligent in all the true concerns of the Church: They left preaching and writing to others, while they gave themselves up to ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... in the next room, hearing the noise of the overturned table, appeared at the door. "Set the table to rights and light the candles again," said his master calmly. "No, let the cards lie. Now begone to the quarters! 'Twas I that stumbled and overset the table." ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... in deep water now, and Phorenice called upon me to come in over the side, she the while balancing nicely so that the flimsy thing should not be overset. The fishers had given up their pursuit, finding that they earned nothing but lopped-off arms and split faces by coming within swing of this terrible sword of their Empress, and so contented themselves with ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... much saile, and little or no ballast, is easily overset; and that man, whose head hath great abilities, and his heart little or no grace, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... Hill and the ship's surgeon endeavoured to follow the vessel in a small boat, in order to attempt some arrangement; but just as they had reached her, they were dashed by the waves against the ship's side and overset, and narrowly escaped with their lives. Drachart and Haven now betook themselves to the stranded shallop, but they were destitute of provisions, and the rain fell in torrents. The Esquimaux, who perceived their wretched situation, came and represented to them that ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... Aristotle has described the bird and its nest; which, according to him, resembled those concretions that are formed by the sea water, and fashioned in the shape of a long necked gourd, hollow within, but so narrow at the entrance, that if it overset the water could not enter. This nest was called Halcyoneum, and had medical virtues ascribed to it: it was also a floating one; and therefore it was necessary for the poets who have described it to place it on a tranquil sea, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various

... these verses," says Burns to Thomson, "for any merit they have. I composed them at the time in which 'Patie Allan's mither died, about the back o' midnight,' and by the lee side of a bowl of punch, which had overset every mortal in company, except the hautbois and the muse." To the poet's intercourse with musicians we owe ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... the water, almost beneath the timbers of the wharf, is lying a queer little steam-tub, the Gemini, which will convey us on the first stage of our journey. A loafer on the wharf cautions us mockingly to step aboard with care, lest we overset the little steamer, or break through her somewhat rickety planking. She is about the size of some of those steam-launches that puff up and down the English Thames, but she would look rather out of place among ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... natural element to him, and he often amused himself in a manner which, to one less expert, would have been attended with the utmost danger. He would sometimes go out in a boat, and overset her by carrying a press of sail. Acts of daring like these must find their excuse in the spirit of a fearless youth. But he often found the advantage of that power and self-possession in the water ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... instances in which their children have contrived to make their way gallantly in the world, unaided by the patronage of the great, whilst others who were possessed of it were most miserably shipwrecked, being suddenly overset by some unexpected squall, against which it could avail ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... celebrated by the Bishop of Nantes. Then, amid acclamations and blessings, and with largess to the crowd, the king returned to the monastery of Saint Denis, where he dined amid a multitude of spectators, who thronged so thickly around him that his dinner-table was nearly overset. These were the very Parisians, who, but three years before, had been feeding on rats and dogs and dead men's bones, and the bodies of their own children, rather than open their gates to this ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... thoughts, be stopped and set; A little while, O Death, ere he forget, A small space more of life, a little term; A little longer ere he and thou be met, Ere in that hand that fed thee to thy mind The poison-cup of life be overset; A little respite of disastrous breath, Till the soul lift up her lost eyes, and find Nor God nor help nor ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... further or more original causes. Still less is she moved by the virtuous indignation that is the least charming of the ways of some little girls. Elle ne fait que constater. Her equanimity has never been overset by the wildest of his moments, and she has witnessed them all. It is needless to say that she is not frightened by his drama, for Nature takes care that her young creatures shall not be injured by sympathies. Nature encloses them in the innocent indifference that preserves ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... Federal Court limits all legislative authority. If any one wishes to see the extent to which the power of such a Court has gone in fact, he should study the decisions on the Legal Tender Act, which all but overset or nullified the financial legislation of Congress during the War of Secession. If he wishes to see the effect of applying the constitution of the United States, or anything like that constitution, to Great Britain and Ireland, he should consider ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... he committed several blunders. Once he almost overturned his cup, then he blushed till his face was all discoloured, and bit his under lip savagely. A minute after that, while gallantly passing a plate containing gache a corinthe to Adele, he knocked it against the sugar basin, overset the latter, and sent the pieces of sugar and cake flying in all directions. He grew angry with himself, and completely lost his head. Mr. Rougeant complained of not being hungry. Frank, who misunderstood him, answered: "Ah! I ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... purchase before I set out. I am worn out, but pass on to Barnby Moor to-night, and if possible to York the next. I know not what is the matter with me, but some derangement presses hard upon this machine. Still, I think it will not be overset this bout"—another of those utterances of a cheerful courage under the prostration of pain which reveal to us the manliest side of Sterne's nature. On reaching Coxwold his health appears to have temporarily mended, and in June we find him giving a far better account of himself to another of ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... our Saturday afternoon, when the fight overset our boat, Alfred Higginson and Drake had not spoken to one another. This eighteenth of June, even, Drake did not wake Alfred, but left others of us to do so. Thrown together so intimately every minute of the day, and so often on the point of speaking—often almost necessitated to ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... This rebuke almost overset him; he made many apologies, and said that he should certainly have first applied to her, but that he had no notion the young lady would have refused him, and, on the contrary, had concluded that she would have assisted him to persuade ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... boat, I should have said," answered the lieutenant. "Now spring with all the agility you possess." At which the lady gave a bound which nearly overset the gallant officer, and would have ended by bringing her down on the sand, had not General Caulfield caught her ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston



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