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Overrule   /ˈoʊvərrˌul/   Listen
Overrule

verb
(past & past part. overruled; pres. part. overruling)
1.
Rule against.  Synonyms: override, overthrow, overturn, reverse.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Overrule" Quotes from Famous Books



... secret hint shall direct us this way, when we intended to go that way: nay, when sense, our own inclination, and perhaps business has called us to go the other way, yet a strange impression upon the mind, from we know not what springs, and by we know not what power, shall overrule us to go this way; and it shall afterwards appear that had we gone that way, which we should have gone, and even to our imagination ought to have gone, we should have been ruined and lost. Upon these and many like reflections I afterwards made it a certain rule with me, that whenever ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... thing relating to this matter is too deep for us. Deity had no embarrassment. To omniscience all was easy and obvious. The great Supreme needed only to sit at helm, superintend and overrule the lulls of apostate creatures, to effect the purposes of his grace! Need only to permit man freely to follow his own inclinations! "The wrath of man would thus be made to praise God;" and the designs of mercy be accomplished! The greatest good be occasioned ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

... FAIRE UNE ESPECE DE GUERRE)," as they term it. Being puffed up with general vanity, and the newspaper rumor about Haddick's feat,—which, like the gloves it got, is going all to left-hand in this way. Hildburghausen and the others overrule Soubise; and indeed there is no remedy; "Provision almost out;—how retreat to our magazines and our fastnesses, with Friedrich once across Saale, and sticking to the skirts of us?" Here, from eye-witnesses where possible, are the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... man who was nothing less than exact himself made him extremely impracticable as an inmate, though most instructive as companion and useful as a friend. Mr. Thrale, too, could sometimes overrule his rigidity by saying coldly, "There, there, now we have had enough for one lecture, Dr. Johnson. We will not be upon education any more till after dinner, if you please," or some such speech. But when there was nobody to restrain his ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... exalting, and hoping, with such authority, to overthrow all opposition. Accordingly, next morning, when her nephew was about to undergo his diurnal baptism, she produced the commission, whereby she conceived herself empowered to overrule such inhuman proceedings, but she was disappointed in her expectation, confident as it was; not that Mrs. Pickle pretended to differ in opinion from Dr. Colocynth, "for whose character and sentiments," said she, "I have such veneration, that I shall carefully observe the caution implied ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... unknown. They had every one of them to learn by bitter experience how very useless the best meant laws might be to insure just and humane treatment, if the ideal of an out-of-date, and therefore fictitious, individual personal liberty were allowed to overrule and annul the greatest ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... abuse it; because all men possessed of an uncontrolled discretionary power leading to the aggrandisement and profit of their own body have always abused it: and I see no particular sanctity in our times, that is at all likely, by a miraculous operation, to overrule the ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... was calculating consequences; and, shutting her eyes on the too evident world about her, prayed that the Lord would overrule all for good. The Doctor prayed that he might have grace to speak the truth, and the whole truth. We have yet on record, in his published works, the great argument of that day, through which he moved with that calm ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... dreaded—an appeal to public opinion. The faintest hint of such a terrible eventuality made his heart dissolve within him; he would agree to anything he would cut short his grouse-shooting—he would make a speech in the House of Lords, he would even overrule Dr. Andrew Smith—rather than that. Miss Nightingale held the fearful threat in reserve—she would speak out what she knew; she would publish the truth to the whole world, and let the whole world judge between ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... not fear to trust him. As we have been doing, let us continue to do, confidently believing that He will overrule all for good. To our present sight, it seems, that, unless we receive, as heretofore, a sum of money for Fanny's support and education, we cannot do for her what is right. This, ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur

... most fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and who has kept us in His hands from the infancy of our Republic to the present day, that He will so overrule all my intentions and actions and inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens that we may be preserved from dangers of all kinds and continue forever a united and ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... you'll only mend your manners and repenting let us in We will jolly you forever, we will pat your cheek and chin; Or we'll lay for you till doom's-day and we'll then be hoping still That the boys will overrule you and will save ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... subordinate; really distinct, but not equally independent, since "second causes" are, from their very nature, subject to the dominion and control of that Omniscient Mind which called them into being, and which knows how to overrule them all for the accomplishment of ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... us to silence and caution; then when we were safely past she would have us run, still feigning to be cold, but in truth (as I think) to avoid being overtaken by Mr. Godwin, fearing, maybe, that he would overrule her will. This way we sped till Moll was fain to stop with a little cry of pain, and clapping her hand to her heart, being fairly spent and out of breath. Then we took her betwixt us, lending her our arms for support, and falling into a more regular pace ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... heart began to beat rapidly. All at once she felt that she had done a most foolish thing in allowing the children to overrule her and bring her here. Ellen would not be dressed up nor have the children ready for inspection, and she would be angry at her sister for not having given warning of their coming. She leaned forward breathlessly to suggest ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... kingdom should, by peculiar laws, correct the judgments and proceedings of another kingdom." Such is the genius of the law of England, that these two principles, of the general moral necessities of things, and the nature of the case, overrule every other principle, even those rules which seem the very strongest. Chief-Baron Parker, in answer to an objection made against the infidel deponent, "that the plaintiff ought to have shown that he could not have the evidence of Christians," says, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... to be a person of authority. An Arab town or village is a democracy in which each free man has his say; not even a sheik can overrule the vote of a majority, and this man was no sheik. But rage and self-assertion will generally exercise a certain weight in tribal councils, and the crowd in this case was too doubtful of the facts to have any settled notions of ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... I do Desire by this plan of Vere's? What good might I not do her? Was it mere slavishness of mind on my part not to overrule her timid will? She must pardon me when she realized my desperate case. A dying man might be excused for some roughness of haste, surely. Whether flight could save us I did not know. I did know absolutely that my enemy had crossed the Barrier last night, and I was prey merely withheld ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... that the claim might be met, the contents of the artist's studio and some of his furniture would seem to have been seized. King Philip recorded his gracious distress at this decision, but did nothing to overrule it. ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan

... greatest instance is the most obvious. The Congress rules the law, but the President rules the administration. One means of unity the Constitution does give: the President can veto laws he does not like. But when two-thirds of both Houses are unanimous (as has lately happened), they can overrule the President and make the laws without him; so here there are three separate repositories of the legislative power in different cases: first, Congress and the President when they agree; next, the ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... principle which we should lay down as immovably true, is, that if a good work can not be carried on by the calm, self-controlled, benevolent spirit of Christianity, then the time for doing it has not come. God asks not the aid of our vices. He can overrule them for good, but they are not to be chosen instruments of human happiness." p. 138. "The adoption of the common system of agitation by the abolitionists has proved signally unsuccessful. From the beginning it created alarm in the considerate, and strengthened the sympathies ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... In other words, it is in the nature of bodies to move up and down, ergo any physical fact which supposes them not so to move, can not be authentic. This mode of reasoning, by which a bad generalization is made to overrule all facts which contradict it, is Petitio Principii in one ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... believe that the worthy lady did neither write nor countenance the same, perhaps did not ever know of them. She always had at her elbow one who jogged it when he listed, and although he could not overrule the daughter, he took especial care that none other should remove her from his tutelage, even when she had fairly grown up ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... to correspond with me on serious subjects, stating that she needed much instruction. She hoped I would pardon the liberty which she had taken by introducing herself to my notice. She expressed a trust that the Lord would overrule both the death of her sister and the personal acquaintance with me that resulted from it, to a present and future good, as it respected herself, and also her parents, with whom she statedly lived, and to whom she expected to ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond



Words linked to "Overrule" :   reverse, rule, decree



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