Search the Dictionary

To cause to be full; to flood; to overflow; to overwhelm with water; as, to flush the meadows; to flood for the purpose of cleaning; as, to flush a sewer.

-- said of the sun. (b) To be known or recognized by (a name, title, etc.). (c) To be overwhelmed, submerged, or defeated; to perish; to succumb. -- To go up, to come to nothing; to prove abortive; to fail. [Slang] -- To go upon, to act upon, as a foundation or hypothesis. -- To go with. (a) To accompany. (b) To coin…

To overwhelm. [Obs.] Spenser.

To overwhelm with water; to drench; to drown. [Obs.] Shak.

To swallow up or overwhelm in, or as in, a gulf; to cast into a gulf. See Engulf. A river large . . . Passed underneath ingulfed. Milton.

threads into a fabric, as in knitting or lace making. Hector, when he sees Andromache overwhelmed with terror, sends her for consolation to the loom and the distaff. Rambler.

Abounding in monsters. [R.] Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world. Milton.

Hence, any overwhelming, oppressive, or stupefying influence.

ver; to cover woth, or as with, water or other fluid; to spread over; to inundate; to overwhelm. The northern nations overflowed all Christendom. Spenser.

To lay, or spread, something over or across; hence, to cover; to overwhelm; to press excessively upon. When any country is overlaid by the multitude which live upon it. Sir W. Raleigh. As when a cloud his beams doth overlay. Spenser. Framed of cedar overlaid with gold. Milton. And overlay With this portentous bridge th…

To bear upon with irresistible force; to crush; to overwhelm. Shak.

Hence, a desperate hazard or act; a state of being submerged or overwhelmed with difficulties. [R.] She was brought to that plunge, to conceal her husband's murder or accuse her son. Sir P. Sidney. And with thou not reach out a friendly arm, To raise me from amidst this plunge of sorrows Addison.

To extinguish; to overwhelm; to make an end of; -- said of flame and fire, of things burning, and figuratively of sensations and emotions; as, to quench flame; to quench a candle; to quench thirst, love, hate, etc. Ere our blood shall quench that fire. Shak. The supposition of the lady's death Will quench the wonder of…

To be overwhelmed or depressed; to fall slowly, as so the ground, from weakness or from an overburden; to fail in strength; to decline; to decay; to decrease. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke. Shak. He sunk down in his chariot. 2 Kings ix. 24. Let not the fire sink or slacken. Mortimer.

To cause (a boat) to become filled with water; to capsize or sink by whelming with water.

To find fault with; to scold; to overwhelm with wordy abuse; to censure severely or abusively; to rate.

Forces; army. [Poetic] On their embattled ranks the waves return, And overwhelm their war. Milton.

Beset or overwhelmed with woe; immersed in grief or sorrow; woeful. Chaucer. So woe-begone was he with pains of love. Fairfax.