Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Overbear
Oˊver-bear′
,Verb.
T.
1.
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. Bacon.
Overborne
with weight the Cyprians fell. Dryden.
They are not so ready to
overbear
the adversary who goes out of his own country to meet them. Jowett (Thucyd. )
2.
To domineer over; to overcome by insolence.
Oˊver-bear′
,Verb.
I.
To bear fruit or offspring to excess; to be too prolific.
Webster 1828 Edition
Overbear
OVERBEAR
,Verb.
T.
The point of reputation, when the news first came of the battle lost, did overbear the reason of war.
Yet fortune, valor, all is overborne by numbers.
Till overborne with weight the Cyprians fell.
Definition 2024
overbear
overbear
English
Verb
overbear (third-person singular simple present overbears, present participle overbearing, simple past overbore, past participle overborne)
- (obsolete, transitive) To carry over. [10th-14th c.]
- (transitive) To push through by physical weight or strength; to overwhelm, overcome. [from 16th c.]
- c. 1390, Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Wife of Bath's Tale’, The Canterbury Tales, Penguin Classics, p. 287:
- I attacked first and they were overborne, / Glad to apologize and even suing / Pardon for what they'd never thought of doing.
- c. 1390, Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Wife of Bath's Tale’, The Canterbury Tales, Penguin Classics, p. 287:
- (transitive) To prevail over; to dominate, overpower; to oppress. [from 16th c.]
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, V.11:
- It often fals, in course of common life, / That right long time is overborne of wrong […].
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, V.11:
- (intransitive) To produce an overabundance of fruit. [from 18th c.]