overmighty

From over- +‎ mighty.

overmighty (comparative more overmighty, superlative most overmighty)

1. Excessively mighty.
   • 1829, Sir Raleigh Walter, Thomas Birch, William Oldys, The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, kt‎, Wiley, page 672:

     Contrariwise, if he leaned to Antiochus, as he must be partaker in his overthrow, so was he sure to be oppressed by him, as by an overmighty neighbour, if he happened to win the victor.

   • 1837, William Ogden Niles, Niles' National Register‎, William Ogden Niles, page 150:

     “In addition to our manifest and indisputable right to the soil of the Oregon Territory — a right derived at once from discovery, from exploration, from occupation, and from solemn treaty stipulations— in addition to all this overmighty hold upon the region, in the resistless affinity lo us and to our institutions of the population which 13 growing tip within its limits. There ore rumors in the public journals that a temporary and provisional government has already been e; tablishicd by the [dwellers on the Oregon. Such a government can he merely temporary ’and provisional. The offspring of necessity, it will, we are assured, gladly give place to the protection of the federal constitution. The men who have made that government will he prompt to remember their right to the name of American citizens. As American citizens, they went to Oregon — ns such, they have lived there, on American soil — as such, they are now under the protecting eye of this nation — and as such, ere long, they are to come into our confederation.”

   • 1863, Benjamin Wrigglesworth Beatsons, Progressive Exercises on the Composition of Greek Iambic Verse‎, Simpkin, Marshall and Company, Whittaker and Company, page 78:

     In-one-word declaring surely these things, that overmighty Tyrants only, and lawless intruders/And worse than these are we, who the beasts/Affrighting thus utterly (Or, from-the-foundation) chine them/In their own lawful abodes.

   • 1886, Cassiodorus Senator, Thomas Hodgkin, The Letters of Cassiodorus‎, Henry Frowde, page 455:

     The Franks also, overmighty by their victories over so many barbarous tribes — by what a great expedition were they harassed! Attacked, they dreaded a contest with the our soldiers; they who had leaped unawares upon so many nations and forced them into battle. But though that haughty race declined the offered conflict, they could not prevent the death of their own King.

   • 1900, Edward Shepherd Creaby, Decisive Battles of the World‎, P. F. Collier & Sons, page 293:

     But "woe to the people whose liberty depends on the continued forbearance of an overmighty protector."

   • 1908, Frank Merry Stenton, William The Conqueror‎, G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 145:

     Edward would have shown less than the little intelligence with which he is to be credited if he had failed to see that some counterpoise to the power of his overmighty subject might be found by giving wealth and influence to strangers from across the Channel.

   • 1909, Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg, The Yale Literary Magazine, Volume 74, Issue 9‎, Yale Literary Society, page 390:

     In each the Greek conception of Fate is supreme. In the gods "there is a mighty, divine power which grows not old," and "Men overmighty in stature are plunged in helpless ruin."

   • 1913, T. F. Tout, An Advanced History of Great Britain‎, Longmans, Green & Company, page 483:

     Before long William of Orange showed such skill as a general and a diplomatist that he became the soul of the general European opposition to the overmighty power of France.

   • 1918, Keith Feiling, A History of England‎, Macmillan and Company Limited, page 55:

     Offa died in 796, and his only son a few months later; the blood he had shed, wrote Alcuin, would fall on his innocent descendants. In fact, he had bequeathed three dangers which, even had the Vikings never come, might well have ruined Mercia, — inextinguishable hatreds in the kingdoms he had oppressed, overmighty power of the Church, and the Welsh frontier. The last was a slow smouldering fire.

   • 2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 356:

     Under Selim and his successors, the Ottoman empire was still expanding and, thanks to vast resources and superb bureaucracy, it remained awesomely powerful for another century– but its emperors soon struggled to control distant provinces ruled by overmighty governors and Jerusalem's tranquillity was periodically shattered by bouts of violence.