overawe
verbUK /əʊvəˈɹɔː/ · US /oʊvɚˈɔ/
Etymology From over- + awe.
1
To restrain, subdue, or control by awe; to cow.
- None doe you like, but an effeminate Prince, Whom like a Schoole-boy you may ouer-awe.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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
- 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.1849, Herman Melville, “ch. 57”, in Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, volume I:
1 more example
- He kept the biggest estates, and where he lacked troops to overawe the natives he evicted the natives and made a game reserve.2000, Alasdair Gray, The Book of Prefaces, Bloomsbury, published 2002, page 61:
- Antonyms
- underwhelm
- Derived terms
- overawer