overawe
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overawe (third-person singular simple present overawes, present participle overawing, simple past and past participle overawed)
- (transitive) To restrain, subdue, or control by awe; to cow. [from 16th c.]
- 1591, William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, part 1:
- None doe you like, but an effeminate Prince, Whom like a Schoole-boy you may ouer-awe.
- 2000, Alasdair Gray, The Book of Prefaces, Bloomsbury 2002, p. 61:
- He kept the biggest estates, and where he lacked troops to overawe the natives he evicted the natives and made a game reserve.
- 1591, William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, part 1: