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Overset   Listen
verb
Overset  v. t.  (past & past part. overset; pres. part. oversetting)  
1.
To turn or tip (anything) over from an upright, or a proper, position so that it lies upon its side or bottom upwards; to upset; as, to overset a chair, a coach, a ship, or a building.
2.
To cause to fall, or to fail; to subvert; to overthrow; as, to overset a government or a plot.
3.
To fill too full. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overset" Quotes from Famous Books



... much astonished as the rest; but, after all, much as the children tormented his bonfires, overset his haycocks, and disturbed his wood-pile, he did not like anyone to scold them but himself, much less the new London Lady; so he made up an odd sort of grin, and said, "No, no, Ma'am, it ain't that they do so much harm; let 'em bide;" and ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... defection of Pedro consoled them, in its absence of any witness to their disaster; even their previous slight attitude to each other was forgotten. They groped their way, pushing and panting, to the road again, where, beholding the overset buggy with its wheels ludicrously in the air, they suddenly seized and shook each other, and in an outburst of hilarious ecstasy, fairly laughed until the tears came into ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... may be indefinitely multiplied, for this principle is as true in the law as any physical fact in the exact sciences. It is not contended, indeed, that any degree of doubt must be of a reasonable nature, so as to overset the moral evidence of guilt. A mere possibility of innocence will not suffice, for, upon human testimony, no case is free from possible innocence. Even the more direct evidence of crime may be possibly mistaken. But the doubt required by the law must be consonant with reason and of such a nature ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... am, for I keep getting a little better and a little worse, and remaining at last just as I were. I was very bad this morning, but have recovered this evening as I generally do, and I really fear that I shall never entirely overset it. I have written to Hessey for Dr. Darling's assistance again today, and I have desired him to forward this letter to you. Drop a line to say that you receive it, and give my kind remembrances to your better half, Mrs. Cunningham. I will try your patience ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... pen could not trace it.——In a word, nothing could exceed the ferocity of the infuriate populace; and the sacking of the palace of the Trojan king presents but a faint image of what passed here on the day which overset the throne of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... draperies passed over the soft carpet. The door opened and shut with a slam. Lynette had left the room. As Saxham sat alone, a heavy, brooding figure, mechanically sipping at his port, and staring at the empty place opposite, where the overset flower-glass, and the crookedly pushed-back chair, and the serviette that made a white streak on the dark crimson carpet, marked the haste and emotion of her departure, he said to himself that the West End upholsterer who had the contract for refurnishing Plas Bendigaid ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... rise at full moon may be 10 or 11 feet, with us it sometimes was 8 or 9 feet, and that in ye course of ye hour...At all times it is imprudent to carry sail on a boat in this sound; the puffs come so violent that before anybody could take in her sail she would to a certainty be overset; even ships, in my opinion, would do well before they enter this sound to take in all their small sails and keep all hands at the braces fore and aft as well as hands by the top-sail halyards, and it is necessary ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... lately in the papers an account of a boat overset between Mull and Ulva, in which many passengers were lost, and among them Maclean of Col. We, you know, were once drowned[841]; I hope, therefore, that the story is either wantonly or erroneously told. Pray satisfy ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... at Faneul Hall some biscuit & cheese four qr Casks of wine three barrels & two hogs of punch the moment they found that the people had drank sufficiently means were taken to overset the two hogspunch this being done the company dispersed and the day ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... fight, an eager crew Were gathered to the margin of their deck (Leaving the upper side as bare of foes), Their ship was overset. Beneath the keel Which floated upwards, prisoned in the sea, And powerless by spread of arms to float The main, they perished. One who haply swam Amid the battle, chanced upon a death Strange and unheard of; for two ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... exposition of the system is found in the work of the classical economists—Adam Smith and his followers of half a century—who created the modern science of political economy. Beginning as controversialists anxious to overset a particular system of trade regulation, they ended by becoming the exponents of a new social order. Modified and amended as their system is in its practical application, it still largely conditions our outlook to-day. It is to this system that we ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... of falling upon the coast, tacked off again to sea, and out of their course. About eleven o'clock at night the storm began much more violent than the night before, continuing about six hours, to the imminent danger of the ship to be overset and foundered in the sea, but still God preserved them. About midnight was a horrible noise, the thunder fierce and strangely loud, the sky all in flames with the wonderful lightnings; and though it be frequent to meet with great tempests of thunder ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... blame you for defending him. But tell me candidly, Julia, had he never saved your life, do you think you should have been attached to him as you are?—Believe me, the rude blast that overset your boat was a prosperous gale of ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... Saturday afternoon, when the fight overset our boat, Alfred Higginson and Drake had not spoken to one another. This eighteenth of June, even, Drake did not wake Alfred, but left others of us to do so. Thrown together so intimately every minute of the ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... the greatest anxiety at the little intelligence I receive from Mir Jafar, and if he is not treacherous, his sang froid or want of strength will, I fear, overset the expedition. I am trying a last effort by means of a Brahmin to prevail upon him to march out and join us. I have appointed Plassey as the place of rendezvous, and have told him at the same time that unless he gives this or some ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... it nothing but rocks, stones, and craggy cliffs, such as we had not seen the like of since leaving Cape St Johns. The tide being now in our favour carried our ships to the westwards against the wind, when suddenly one of our boats struck on a rock and overset, so that our people had to leap out and set it to right again. After going along this coast for two hours, the tide turned against us, so that it was impossible to advance any farther with all our oars. We went therefore to land, leaving 10 or 12 of our people to keep the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... great suavity, had overset the former and defied the latter. His story was of the smoothest. He was a military strategist, he declared, and General Leborge had asked him to investigate the citadel, in order to determine its value as the site ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... next morning with a fresh breeze of wind from south-east; as we steered round Cape Tribulation the sea ran so heavy that our boat, which was towed astern, filled and overset, and in a moment went to pieces. The wind had now increased to a gale, and the weather threatened so much that we were induced to take advantage of a bight to the northward of the Cape, in which ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... Radicalism, spoken or performed, pulled Cougham on his beam-ends. Cougham, to right himself, defined his Liberalism sharply from the politics of the pit, pointed to France and her Revolutions, washed his hands of excesses, and entirely overset Beauchamp. Seeing that he stood in the Liberal interest, the junior could not abandon the Liberal flag; so he seized it and bore it ahead of the time, there where Radicals trip their phantom dances like shadows ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... had recourse to Larry's shoulder, and shook and pulled, and called to him to go slower, but in vain: at last the wheel struck full against a heap of stones at a turn of the road, the wooden linchpin came off, and the chaise was overset: Lord Colambre was a little bruised, but glad to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... looked so much disappointed, that I thought it incumbent upon me, since the blunder must have been my servant's, to do what I could to comfort him. I therefore forced myself forward to talk to him, and pass over the embarrassment but he was modest, and consequently overset, and soon after took ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... July we got into a deep Bay, four Leagues N.W. from the two small Islands before mentioned. But the Night before, in a violent Tornado, our Bark being unable to beat any longer, bore away, which put us in some pain for fear she was overset, as we had like to have been our selves. We anchored on the South West side of the Bay, in fifteen fathom Water, about a Cables length from the shore. Here we were forced to shelter our selves from the violence of the Weather, which was so boisterous with Rains, and Tornadoes, and a strong Westerly ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... see all men vote, but says that it is unnecessary that women should vote; and for making this distinction HE gives as a reason an assertion which, in the first place, is not true, and which, in the next place, would, if true, overset his whole theory of human nature; namely, that the interest of the women is identical with that of the men. We side with Mr Bentham, so far, at least, as this: that, when we join to drive the camel through the needle, he shall go through ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... for England about the end of April, 1716. While the man of war rode at anchor near the bar, Mr. Gideon Johnston, with about thirty more gentlemen, went into a sloop to take leave of their beloved Governor, and sailed with him over the bar. On their return a storm arose, the sloop was overset, and Mr. Johnston, being lame of the gout and in the hold, was drowned. The other gentlemen, who were upon deck, saved themselves by swimming to the land. Afterwards the sloop drove, and what has been thought somewhat remarkable, Mr. Johnston's body was taken out of it while beating ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... cause of liberty. He had scarcely taken this resolution, and made preparations to go to the continent and join the army of the French republic, when the war broke out between England and France, and totally overset his purpose and his hopes of military promotion, rendering that which before would have been lawful if not laudable, an act of treason to his country, of the bare contemplation of which, it is fair to believe, he ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... land at the junction of two streams and was strongly built of stone, it was an excellent {113} place of defence against the attack of Colborne's troops. On the fatal fourteenth of December 1837 it was stoutly held by Chenier and his men, until two British officers broke into the sacristy and overset the stove. Soon the fire drove the garrison out of the building, which was destroyed along with the new school-house near by. His parishioners were loyal, Father Paquin contended in a well-reasoned petition; it was not they but the discontented people of ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... these verses," says Burns to Thomson, "for any merit they have. I composed them at the time in which 'Patie Allan's mither died, about the back o' midnight,' and by the lee side of a bowl of punch, which had overset every mortal in company, except the hautbois and the muse." To the poet's intercourse with musicians we owe ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... noise of the overturned table, appeared at the door. "Set the table to rights and light the candles again," said his master calmly. "No, let the cards lie. Now begone to the quarters! 'Twas I that stumbled and overset the table." ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... overset; The wash-tub spilled, and the floor all wet; And here and there in cinders black, The ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... it is odd that 'such a terrible Protector this; no getting of him overset!' should have been compelled to contend with the notorious and obstinate incredulity of the members of his Parliament regarding the late attempt to overset him? Yet Cromwell's speech of September 1656 is pervaded with expressions such as these, regarding the 'bold and dangerous ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... Bending down, he seized the baby in both hands, and tried to nurse it as his two aunts nursed it. The infant's weight was considerable; it exceeded Tom's estimate, with the result that, in the desperate process of extracting the baby from the cradle, the cradle had been overset, and ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset and fell. I remember that—though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know—flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple—a black thing in the ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... to visit the Brother I began telling you of: and, at a hasty visit to the Royal Academy, caught a glimpse of Annie Thackeray: {16b} who had first caught a glimpse of me, and ran away from her Party to seize the hands of her Father's old friend. I did not know her at first: was half overset by her cordial welcome when she told me who she was; and made a blundering business of it altogether. So much so, that I could not but write afterwards to apologize to her: and she returned as kind an Answer as she had given a Greeting: telling me that my chance ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... us plenty of exercise in tacking; and the constant going aloft, with the brig rolling and a choppy sea under her, had overset the equilibrium of poor ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... overset Ellen's gravity, and unluckily she could not get it back again, even though warned by Mrs. Van Brunt that her aunt was coming. Trying only made it worse, and Miss Fortune's entrance was but the signal for a fresh burst of hearty merriment. What she was laughing at, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... also the willfully ignorant professor, or him that is afraid to know more, for fear of the cross. He is for picking and choosing of truth, and loveth not to hazard his all for that worthy name by which he would be called. When he is at any time overset by arguments, or awakenings of conscience, he uses to heal all by—I was not brought up in this faith; as if it were unlawful for Christians to know more than hath been taught them at first conversion. There are many Scriptures that lie against ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... those poetic legends, the terrors of a material hell, of the joys of a sensual paradise. Rather hold with Plato that the soul is an eternal principle of life, which has neither beginning nor end of existence; for if it were not so, heaven and earth would be overset, and all nature would stand at gaze. "Men say they cannot conceive or comprehend what the soul can be, distinct from the body. As if, forsooth, they could comprehend what it is, when it is in the body,—its conformation, its magnitude, or its position there.... To me, when I consider ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... me is self-sufficingness. I revere the person who is riches; so that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, or exiled, or unhappy, or a client, but as perpetual patron, benefactor, and beatified man. Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset. A man should give us a sense of mass. Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes. But if I go to see an ingenious man I shall think myself poorly entertained if ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Todd had told me one day that Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading; she had also made dark reference to his having "spells" of some unexplainable nature. I could not help wondering what errand had brought him out in search of me. There was something ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... (seventh day after the bad news); and made towards—Shall we tell the reader, what is Officially a dead secret, though by this time well guessed at by the Public, English and also Spanish?—towards Carthagena, to reinforce fiery Vernon, in the tropical latitudes; and overset Spanish America, beginning with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... enter by withdrawing curtains of scarlet cloth, a colour vividly contrasting with the white shining marble of which the whole Kiosk is formed. It is a favourite diversion of the Pasha himself to row some favourite Circassians in one of the barques and to overset his precious freight in the midst of the lake. As his Highness piques himself upon wearing a caftan of calico, and a juba or exterior robe of coarse cloth, a ducking has not for him the same terrors it would offer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various

... Tides and periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses; by all which the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (unmiraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed? Such a Minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious Course of Providence through AEons ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... rudely interrupted by Paul, who struck the tablets from his hands, with a violence that betrayed the utter intellectual confusion which had overset the equanimity of his mind. Before time was allowed for remonstrance, the old man, who had continued during the whole scene like one much at a loss how to proceed, though also like one who was rather perplexed than alarmed, suddenly assumed a decided air, as if he no longer doubted ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... his own recital, he would rise from table, bounding to the middle of the dining-room, imitating the roar of a lion and the going off of a rifle crack! bang! the zizz of the explosive bullet—gesticulating and roaring about till he had overset the chairs. ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... visits." They had two double carrioles, or gigs: the road over which they passed was "steep and rugged beyond description." In returning, the carriole in which Peter Bedford rode struck against a rock at a sharp corner and was overset. Peter Bedford's right shoulder was dislocated, and he otherwise bruised. In conveying him into Christiansand he suffered much from the shaking of the car; but the joint was quickly set by a skilful surgeon; and, in the evening, the love he felt for the people was so strong, ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... out of the way of all human commerce. In this distress, one morning, there was a cry of "Land!" and almost at the same moment the ship struck against a sandbank. We took to a boat, and worked towards the land; but before we could reach it, a raging wave came rolling astern of us, and overset the boat. We were all thrown into the sea, and out of fifteen who were on board, none escaped but myself. I managed, somehow, to scramble to shore, and clambered up the cliffs, and sat me down on the grass half-dead. Night coming on me, I took up my ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... me as vividly as though it had been enacted but yesterday. The open door, showing a brilliantly-lighted interior; cards scattered on the carpet; a young man—almost a boy—standing, as if frozen with horror, by an overset table; a large bowie knife, common to the country, apparently fallen from his right ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... that he was forced to retreat into the ball-room. He was very near being drowned t'other night going from Ranelagh to Vauxhall, and politeness of Lord Cathcart's, who, stepping on the side of the boat to lend his arm, overset it, and both fell into the water up ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... 1764. According to the traditional story James Hargreaves, a small master weaver living near Blackburn, on coming suddenly into the house caused his wife, who was spinning with the old high wheel, to spring up with a start and overset the wheel, which still continued whirling, but horizontally, and with its spindle in a vertical position. He was at once struck with the idea of using one wheel to cause a number of spindles to revolve by means of a continuous band, and by the device of substituting for ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... overset, sailing beneath the moon with that Moon-lady for a pilot," he replied heavily. "Had the sun been up, it might have been different. Moreover, the path into a net is always ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... Cromwell had gathered his scattered Ironsides, that gallant host was driven fighting, down the hill and back to the shelter of Worcester. With the Roundheads pressing hotly upon them they gained at last the Sidbury Gate, but only to find that an overset ammunition wagon blocked the entrance. In this plight, and without attempting to move it, they faced about to make a last stand against the ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... blindness, and especially since Angelique left me for the churchyard, never to come back.' He paused to my great relief. For every one of those phrases he modulated under the fig-trees more sadly than the Lamentations of Jeremiah on Jeudi Saint overset me—was like death." ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater

... with wildly tousled hair sat sprawling in a chair; arms on the table, and head sunk forward down upon them. A full tankard of wine within his reach, and a flagon had been overset, sluicing the table with its contents, which still fell drip, drip, ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... natural element to him, and he often amused himself in a manner which, to one less expert, would have been attended with the utmost danger. He would sometimes go out in a boat, and overset her by carrying a press of sail. Acts of daring like these must find their excuse in the spirit of a fearless youth. But he often found the advantage of that power and self-possession in the water which he derived from his early habits, in ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... Fitzgerald was travelling from Constantinople to Warsaw, and a waggon with his baggage heavily laden overset; the country people harnessed two buffaloes by the horns, in order to draw it over, which they did with ease. In some very instructive conversation I had with this gentleman on the subject of his travels, ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... foot overset a stone, which rolled noisily down the rocks. The noise attracted the attention of the two seated below us. They turned and looked searchingly towards the place where we were concealed. Their faces were in plain sight. As ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... Nicholas, dragging Sir Edmund back, "life is more than any woman." Then some one overset the tapers, so that the place was plunged in gloom, and through it none saw Acour and his train creep out by the chancel door and hurry to their horses, which waited saddled in ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... suited to the parting of those who were to meet no more. Our party descended through the valley of our Lady of the Snow, and our late companions, to Art. We had hoped to meet in a few weeks at Geneva; but on the third succeeding day (on the 21st of August) Mr. Goddard perished, being overset in a boat while crossing the lake of Zurich. His companion saved himself by swimming, and was hospitably received in the mansion of a Swiss gentleman (M. Keller) situated on the eastern coast of the lake. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... seen so strange a boy in all her life—and certainly none so strong. He leaped into the broken boat, seized Ruth's oar that had not been lost in the overset, and bracing it against the rock, pushed the trembling boat free ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... I do. But sez I, "Folks must be megum even in goodness, Josiah Allen, and in order to set down and hold a half orphan in your arms, you mustn't overset yourself and come down on the floor on top of a hull ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... the tyrant's order. From feelings of modesty Kleonike entreated the attendants at the door of his bedchamber to extinguish all the lights, and she then silently in the darkness approached the bed where Pausanias lay asleep. But she stumbled and overset the lamp.[307] He, awakened by the noise, snatched up his dagger, and imagining that some enemy was coming to assassinate him, stabbed the girl with it, wounding her mortally. It is said that after this her spirit ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... on to the next man before he had time to secure his second slice. [5] At this our friend took his loss so hard that he only made matters worse: his third course was clean gone, and now in his rage and his bad luck he somehow managed to overset the gravy, which was all that remained to him. The captain next to us seeing how matters stood rubbed his hands with glee and went into peals of laughter. And," said Hystaspas, "I took refuge in a fit of coughing myself, for really I could not have ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... You women are always thinking of men's being in liquor. Why, you do not suppose a man is overset by a bottle? I am sure of this—that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a famous good thing for ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... I cried in my sorrow, "who did play with me among the mountains, refurnish my soul! Purge Thy Temple as Thou didst in Jerusalem of old time, when Thou didst overset the tables of ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... his eyes, than the bed began to move of itself and travelled all round the castle. "Just so," said he, "only better still"; whereupon the bed galloped away as if six horses pulled it up and down steps and stairs, until at last, all at once, it overset, bottom upward, and lay upon him like a mountain; but up he got, threw pillows and mattresses into the air, and saying, "Now he who wishes may travel," laid himself down by the fire and slept till day broke. In the morning ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... best he might with his hand, albeit he had little strength thereof. But presently there issued a sudden flaw of wind out of the air and falling on the sea, smote upon the chest and drove it with such violence against Landolfo's plank that the latter was overset and he himself perforce went under water. However, he struck out and rising to the surface, aided more by fear than by strength, saw the plank far removed from him, wherefore, fearing he might be unable to reach it again, he made for the chest, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... have had in those honours which he was resolved to forgo. Again, as long as these titles were not forthcoming, Esmond's kinsman, dear young Francis, was the honourable and undisputed owner of the Castlewood estate and title. The mere word of a Jesuit could not overset Frank's right of occupancy, and so Esmond's mind felt actually at ease to think the papers were missing, and in their absence his dear mistress and her son the lawful lady and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... knees, her hands uplifted in supplication, "receive not the Duke to-day! All night long I heard the Prince's men grinding swords. Yet another thing, my flower of flowers, the good brother that cometh day by day to our kitchen to seek his dole of bread, hath but now overset a salt-cellar of salt with the sleeve of his gown. Give your lover a little repose, little one. Your pleasure will be all the greater to have him again presently, and he will love you all the better for ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... aeropile fell nearly edgewise with her nose down, and seemed to hesitate whether to overset altogether. He stood on his wind-shield wrenching the wheel that swayed up over his head. And then the shock of the second explosion took his ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... without any attempt to go in search of further or more original causes. Still less is she moved by the virtuous indignation that is the least charming of the ways of some little girls. Elle ne fait que constater. Her equanimity has never been overset by the wildest of his moments, and she has witnessed them all. It is needless to say that she is not frightened by his drama, for Nature takes care that her young creatures shall not be injured ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... towards her, widening from the creek's mouth, and arching with a hateful crest. On it came, a dark and glossy wall; and she knew that if it broke or caught her boat in the least aslant, she must be either swamped or overset. ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a discovery to me, which, had I known it sooner, would have overset me, and prevented my reading any part of my work.[24] He said that he had almost always had an aversion to poetry, which he regarded as the arrangement of fine words, without any useful meaning or adherence to truth; but that when truth and science ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... mansion—and the groves in her garden!—O my friends! are ye all lost to me—must I never, never see ye more!' Tears rushed again to her eyes, and she continued to weep, till an abrupt turn in the road had nearly occasioned the carriage to overset, when, looking up, she perceived another part of the well-known scene around Tholouse, and all the reflections and anticipations, which she had suffered, at the moment, when she bade it last adieu, came with recollected force to her heart. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... also that Sir John Malyoe was dead. For whether it was the sudden shock of the sight of his old captain's face—whom he himself had murdered and thought dead and buried—flashing so out against the darkness, or whether it was the strain of passion that overset his brains, certain it is that when the pirates left the Belle Helen, carrying with them the young lady and Barnaby and the traveling trunks, those left aboard the Belle Helen found Sir John Malyoe lying in a fit ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... Algy was doing something extraordinary, for Maggie had made him overset the dish of potatoes in the middle of the table, and then jump up and sit on the back of his chair, with both legs ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow

... thing in the whole imbroglio is that Josiah Curtenty secretly agreed with his wife and the town. He was ashamed, overset. His procession of geese appeared to him in an entirely new light, and he had the strength of mind to admit to himself, 'I've ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... man have his own, and draweth his sword against malice, and putteth forth his shield of righteousness, to defend innocents against evil doers, and delivereth small children and such as be fatherless, and motherless, and widows, of them that overset them. And he pursueth robbers and rievers, thieves, and other evil doers. And useth his power not after his own will, but he ordaineth and disposeth it as the law asketh.... By reason of one good king and one ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... of them over; an hour more was employed in transporting the baggage; and it was near sunset before the canoe returned, when Demba Sego and myself embarked in this dangerous passage-boat, which the least motion was like to overset. The king's nephew thought this a proper time to have a peep into a tin box of mine, that stood in the forepart of the canoe; and in stretching out his hand for it, he unfortunately destroyed the equilibrium, and overset the canoe. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... come down to me to-morrow morning. The melancholy tidings of the almost sudden death of my poor little niece have just reached me, and have overset me beyond all I can express to you. Poor William's[8] letter, which is all affection, and especially towards you, refers me to you for all the particulars; therefore pray come to me with as little delay as possible. I have not time to add a word more ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... aware—I hope she never may be—of the reasons which force me to this very strange decision. They arise from a painful circumstance, which is attributable to none of our faults; but, having once befallen, they are as fatal and irreparable as that shock which overset honest Alnaschar's porcelain, and shattered all his hopes beyond the power of mending. I write gayly enough, for there is no use in bewailing such a hopeless mischance. We have not drawn the great prize in the lottery, dear Blanche: But I shall be contented enough without it, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of his letters at this time is not generally lively; there is, he says, "a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may date from poor John's (his brother's) loss. Deaths overset one. Then there's Captain Burney gone. What fun has whist now?" He proceeds, "I am made up of queer points. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against it." The only hope he has, he says, is, "that ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... extremely doubtful. Captain Duplessis, in his Plan for the Defence of Canada, 1690, declares that not one of them perished of hunger.] A converted Iroquois had told the governor before his departure that, if he overset a wasps' nest, he must crush the wasps, or they would sting him. Denonville left the ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... far advanced, and before she arrived at the end of her little journey it was quite dark. When they came within a mile of Mr Arnott's house, the postilion, in turning too suddenly from the turnpike to the cross-road, overset the carriage. The accident, however, occasioned no other mischief than delaying their proceeding, and Cecilia and her maid were helped out of the chaise unhurt. The servants, assisted by a man who was walking upon the road, began lifting it up; ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... at table with evident misgivings, and turning sharp round to pay attention to some observation of his loquacious neighbour, overset his bread. There was nothing very bad in this, and if he had had the presence of mind to let it go, and say nothing about it, nobody but the man who had laid the cloth would have been a bit the wiser; but the young gentleman in various semi-successful attempts to prevent its fall, played ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... they find ordinaries every day at dinner and supper. In good weather, there is no danger in this method of travelling, 'till you come to the Pont St. Esprit, where the stream runs through the arches with such rapidity, that the boat is sometimes overset. But those passengers who are under any apprehension are landed above-bridge, and taken in again, after the boat has passed, just in the same manner as at London Bridge. The boats that go up the river are drawn against the stream by oxen, which swim through one of the arches ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... in one of their canoes: They immediately consented, and a canoe was launched for their use. They went all on board, being eight in number, but not being used to a vessel that required so even a balance, they unfortunately overset her in the surf: No life however was lost, but it was thought advisable that half of them should wait for another turn. Mr Banks, Dr Solander, Tupia, and Tayeto embarked again, and without any farther ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... besiege Thorn; will plunge, suddenly, like a fiery javelin, into the heart of Poland, and make Poland surrender its claim. Whereupon King Sigismund bestirred himself in earnest; came out with vast clouds of Polish chivalry; overset Albert's 8,000;—who took to eating the country, instead of fighting for it; being indeed in want of all things. One of the gladdest days Albert had yet seen, was when he got the 8,000 ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... be the handmaid of operations, and that it is in the interest of both that they should be kept quite distinct. It was natural that the first Chief of the General Staff to be appointed, Sir N. Lyttelton, should have hesitated to overset an organization which had been so recently laid down and which had been accepted by the Government as it stood, even if he recognized its unsuitability; but I have never been able to understand how his successors, Sir W. Nicholson and Sir J. French, ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... evening, he will be seen to walk with a slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist and marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. A very small measure will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with a half-pint pot. Some pitying acquaintance—chance acquaintance very often—has warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the consequence will be the lapse of a longer ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... bore it all so stoically; she would smile upon him when he made a good hit, as upon an actor on the boards—she would, at times, even condescend to improve some of his compliments upon herself; and when her easy manners had perchance overset him at the very debut of one of his finest speeches, she would begin it again for him; taking up the dropped sentence, and then settle herself into a complacent ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... and, for the moment, talking very loud. Something about grandmamma seeing her dance, and "When I am married," struck the ear as Hope entered her chamber, and entirely overset the mother. Matilda was soon ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... Marchese. I have spoken as I have never before spoken to any human being. I have opened my heart to you to the very bottom of it. But the effort of doing so has been a painful one. It has terribly overset me; I feel like a wrung-out rag; and would fain rest. You will not be offended if I ask you to leave me now. It is getting late, too; and I expect my father home every instant. Good-night, Signor Marchese. Forgive me if I have said aught that I should not ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... frenzy. Constance is not only a bereaved and doating mother, but a generous woman, betrayed by her own rash confidence; in whose mind the sense of injury mingling with the sense of grief, and her impetuous temper conflicting with her pride, combine to overset her reason; yet she is not mad: and how admirably, how forcibly she herself draws the distinction between the frantic violence of uncontrolled ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... was very nearly overset. But she maintained it, and only answered without the change of a muscle, "I have not the inclination, papa." Indeed her face was too quiet; and Mr. Randolph, putting that with its colourless hue, and the very sweet upward look her eyes ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... bushes on the other side of the narrow wheel-track. She declared at last that if he would not get out and ask she would do it herself, and at this the dry little man jerked the reins in spite of her, and the horse suddenly pulled the carry-all to the right, and seemed about to overset it. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... footsteps had died away, "now I may laugh in peace! I don't congratulate you on the tempers of your future relations, Denys." But Denys was too utterly overset to attempt defence or condemnation. Great tears welled up into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as fast as she wiped them away. She was glad that Gertrude took her side, but she felt that Gertrude's own vagaries had helped not a little, in the avalanche of blame ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... thou, while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... recognising zu Pfeiffer, and recollected the significant pumping at dinner regarding the Wongolo country. However he had renounced any idea of revenge, but the discovery of friend zu Pfeiffer as the terrifying god amused him: quickened a desire to overset the gentleman's plans. He smiled with a slight hardening of the line about his mouth as he began to consider what might ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... overset by the premature outbreak of the Balkan war. But she was bent on getting all she could out of it for her side, and dragged France along with her. At the beginning of the Italy-Tripoli war, Izvolsky had written: "We must ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... tenements, do not threaten long to incumber the earth. The author tells us (and I believe he is the very first author that ever told such a thing to his readers) "that the entire fabric of his speculations might be overset by unforeseen vicissitudes," and what is far more extraordinary, "that even the whole consideration might be varied whilst he was writing those pages." Truly, in my poor judgment, this circumstance formed a very substantial motive for his not publishing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... set of fellows ready to offer their service, who ford the river, and support the carriage; nor is it an easy matter to prevent them, when no such assistance is necessary; and I was obliged to handle my pistols, to make them unhandle my wheels; as it is more than probable they would have overset us in shallow water, to gain an opportunity of shewing their politeness in picking us up again. The stream, indeed, was very rapid; and I was rather provoked by the rudeness of the people, to pass through it without assistance, than ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... pure a Fountain emits no such troubled Waters: They must necessarily arise from the Passions, which are to the Mind as the Winds to a Ship, they only can move it, and they too often destroy it; if fair and gentle, they guide it into the Harbour; if contrary and furious, they overset it in the Waves: In the same manner is the Mind assisted or endangered by the Passions; Reason must then take the Place of Pilot, and can never fail of securing her Charge if she be not wanting to her self: The Strength of the Passions will never be accepted as an Excuse ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... be urg'd as any Objection to his Country; and, in short, if any one of you, or all of you, shall dare to say any thing disrespectful of Teutath, I'll defend its Cause to the last Drop of my Blood. The Quarrel grew warmer and warmer, and Setoc expected that the Table would be overset, and that Blood-shed would ensue. Zadig, who hadn't once open'd his Lips during the whole Controversy, at last rose up, and address'd himself to the Celt, in the first Place, as being the most noisy ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... sword hung by his side. Ralph stood looking on him with his hand on the latch of the gate, but when the man came thereto he tore it open roughly and shoved through at once, driving Ralph back, so that he well-nigh overset him, and so sprang to his horse and swung himself into the saddle, just as Ralph steadied himself and ruffled up to him, half drawing his sword from the scabbard the while. But the man-at-arms cried out, "Put it back, put it ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... a pokerish cavern near Overset Pond, nine or ten miles to the northeast of the old Squire's place, about which ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... a man of a certain dignity, but you had not thought it had you seen him running in silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes at a headlong pace through the narrow streets of Bridgwater, in the direction of the Castle. He overset more than one, and oaths followed him from these and from others whom he rudely jostled out of his path. Wade was gone with Monmouth, but he came upon Captain Slape, who had a company of scythes and musketeers incorporated in the Duke's own regiment, and to him Wilding gasped out the news ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... friendship rested upon his skill in preparing a particular brew of toddy, which needed a single oyster simmering in the saucepan to give it its perfection of flavour. About two o'clock of a June morning the spirit lamp on which the saucepan stewed had been overset; neither of the two confederates in drink had their wits about them at the moment, and the house was half burnt and the rest of it ruined by water before the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... "I believe you are my uncle, sir." Few young chaps would have said that. A fine fellow, and she has lost him. Well, the Almighty sends trouble to the young as well as the old. May I light my pipe, Captain? For I am a bit shaky, and all this has overset me.' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Gothic work, whereby the former government (which was not only a ship, but a gust, too) could never open her sails, but in danger to overset herself, neither could make any voyage nor lie safe in her own harbor. The wars of later ages, says Verulamius, seem to be made in the dark, in respect of the glory and honor which reflected on men from the wars in ancient times. ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington



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