overbear
verbUK /əʊvəˈbɛː/ · US /ˌoʊ.vɚˈbɛɹ/
Etymology From Middle English overberen; equivalent to over- + bear.
1
Obsolete To carry over.
2
To push through by physical weight or strength; to overwhelm, overcome.
- I attacked first and they were overborne, / Glad to apologize and even suing / Pardon for what they'd never thought of doing.1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 287:
3
To prevail over; to dominate, overpower; to oppress.
- It often fals, in course of common life, / That right long time is overborne of wrong […].1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
4
To produce an overabundance of fruit.
- Derived terms
- overbearance, overbearer, overbearing