Search the Dictionary

To overcome or vanquish, as an army; to check, disperse, or ruin by victory; to overthrow.

understand; that which occasions labor or perplexity, and requires skill perseverance to overcome, solve, or achieve; a hard enterprise; an obstacle; an impediment; as, the difficulties of a science; difficulties in theology. They lie under some difficulties by reason of the emperor's displeasure. Addison.…

e line in which the pulling force acts, when the latter has the direction best adapted to overcome the obstacles of friction and the weight of the body. -- Black draught. See under Black, a. -- Blast draught, or Forced draught, the draught produced by a blower, as by blowing in air beneath a fire or drawing out the g…

To overpower; to overcome; to extinguish; -- said especially of sound. Most men being in sensual pleasures drowned. Sir J. Davies. My private voice is drowned amid the senate. Addison. To drown up, to swallow up. [Obs.] Holland.

Overcome by strong drink; intoxicated by, or as by, spirituous liquor; inebriated. Drunken men imagine everything turneth round. Bacon.

ng or suffering; a continuing under pain or distress without resistance, or without being overcome; sufferance; patience. Their fortitude was most admirable in their patience and endurance of all evils, of pain and of death. Sir W. Temple.

To take by assault; to storm; to overcome; to vanquish; as, to expugn cities; to expugn a person by arguments.

machinery by means of its inertia, where the power communicated, or the resistance to be overcome, is variable, as in the steam engine or the coining press. See Fly wheel (below).

To overcome with fatigue; to exhaust. M. Arnold. All with weary task fordone. Shak.

Manifesting a desire to injure, devour, or overcome. They have gaped upon me with their mouth. Job xvi. 10.

Overcome with grog; tipsy; unsteady on the legs. [Colloq.]

Overcome by crushing sorrow; deeply grieved.

Hence: A multifarious evil, or an evil having many sources; not to be overcome by a single effort.

Not to be overcome, presuaded, or controlled by any reasonable method; unmanageable; intractable; not capable of being easily dealt with; -- used in a general sense, as applied to a person or thing that is difficult to control or get along with. This though, impracticable heart Is governed by a dainty-fingered girl. Ro…

Not to be overcome by struggling; irresistible; inevitable. Bp. Pearson. The ineluctable conditions of matter. Hamerton.

Overcome by some foolish passion or desire; affected by infatuation.

le; stubborn. "Inflexibleas steel." Miltom. Amanof upright and inflexibletemper . . . can overcome all private fear. Addison.

Incapable of being passed over, surmounted, or overcome; insuperable; as, insurmountable difficulty or obstacle. Locke. Hope thinks nothing difficult; despair tells us that difficulty is insurmountable. I. Watts.

In a manner or to a degree not to be overcome.

Incapable of being conquered, overcome, or subdued; unconquerable; insuperable; as, an invincible army, or obstacle. Lead forth to battle these my sons Invincible. Milton. -- In*vin"ci*ble*ness, n. -- In*vin"ci*bly, adv.