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overawe. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
overawe, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
overawe in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
overawe you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From over- + awe.
Pronunciation
Verb
overawe (third-person singular simple present overawes, present participle overawing, simple past and past participle overawed)
- (transitive) To restrain, subdue, or control by awe; to cow.
1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):None doe you like, but an effeminate Prince, Whom like a Schoole-boy you may ouer-awe.
1849, Herman Melville, “ch. 57”, in Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, volume I:His free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my assumptions, he was no way overawed by them; treating me as familiarly, indeed, as if I were a mere mortal, one of the abject generation of mushrooms.
2000, Alasdair Gray, The Book of Prefaces, Bloomsbury, published 2002, page 61:He kept the biggest estates, and where he lacked troops to overawe the natives he evicted the natives and made a game reserve.
Antonyms
Translations
to restrain, subdue, or control by awe; to cow