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Overthrow   /ˈoʊvərθrˌoʊ/   Listen
Overthrow

verb
(past overthrew; past part. overthrown; pres. part. overthrowing)
1.
Cause the downfall of; of rulers.  Synonyms: bring down, overturn, subvert.  "Subvert the ruling class"
2.
Rule against.  Synonyms: override, overrule, overturn, reverse.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Overthrow" Quotes from Famous Books



... it: the downfall of Israel is imminent. It was nothing short of blasphemy to utter anything of this kind, for everything, Jehovah Himself included, depended on the existence of the nation. But the most astounding thing has yet to come; not Asshur, but Jehovah Himself, is bringing about the overthrow of Israel; through Asshur it is Jehovah that is triumphing over Israel. A paradoxical thought—as if the national God were to cut the ground from under His own feet! For the faith in Jehovah as the God of Israel was a faith ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... that the vessel which contained our fortune had been wrecked, and gone to the bottom with all its stores, together with several of the crew, and the unfortunate merchant himself. I was grieved for him; I was grieved for the overthrow of all our air-built castles: but, with the elasticity of youth, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... can learn the full character of the good or evil of any abstract principle only by seeing its practical workings. The tree is known by its fruits. Rationalism may be of evil character, but we must see the results it has produced,—the great overthrow of faith it has effected, and its influence upon the pulpit and press of the countries invaded by it, before we can comprehend the vastness of our danger. An enumeration of the evil doings of a public enemy is the best plan to forestall his future misdeeds. We are not to judge Rationalism by its ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... news-stand in any country of Continental Europe where one may not purchase a newspaper openly or secretly opposed to the government,—not merely attacking an unpopular administration or minister or ruler,—but desiring and plotting the overthrow of the entire political system of the country. It is very difficult to find such a newspaper anywhere in the United States. I myself have never seen one. The opening sentence of President Butler's admirable little book, The American as He Is, originally delivered as lectures before the University ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... was the centre of a formidable conspiracy against Richelieu. Messengers came and went, and Bouillon, Soissons, and the Archbishop of Rheims were constantly closeted together. They had various allies at court, and believed that they should be able to overthrow the minister who had so long ruled over France in ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... which to beseech God's pardon. For a long time my course was a course of vanity. I have been a seafaring man, a soldier, and a courtier; and, in the temptations of the least of these there is enough to overthrow a good mind and a good man. I die in the faith professed by the Church of England. I hope to be saved, and to have my sins washed away by the precious blood and merits ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... deeply affecting. My defense—or rather my barrister's—was the simple truth. It was impossible to overthrow the facts against us; so we honestly owned that I got into the scrape through love for Alicia. My counsel turned this to the best possible sentimental account. He cried; the ladies cried; the jury cried; the judge cried; and Mr. Batterbury, who had desperately come to see the trial, and ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... was in him. Looked like he was determined to say some'n nice about Dick, so he gave a few backhanded licks at the Republican party and the nigger-lovers of the North, an' wound up by sayin' that the late lamented had been a stanch Democrat an' worked at the poles as hard to overthrow graftin' and Yankee oppression as any man in the fair Southland. He got through somehow, but, betwixt me 'n you, Alf, I don't think Hettie thought she got her full money's worth, for she was countin' on a wonderful display of poetry and highfalutin' things that would be remembered ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... Eastern New Zealand, we can only assume that these towns, too, have been added to the long and mournful list; indeed, after last evening's Paris telegrams we might have prophesied with some certainty, not merely their overthrow, but even the hour of it: for the rate-uniformity of the slow-riding vapour which is touring our globe is no longer doubtful, and has even been definitely fixed by Professor Craven at 100-1/2 miles per day, or 4 miles 330 yards per hour. Its nature, its origin, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... depends for his success, and who, in turn, depend upon his initiative and capital for their bread and butter, is turned into an armed camp of plotting enemies, who, while they work, grumble, and who, while they receive their wages, scheme for the overthrow of the entire concern! His mills, instead of being shelters for his brothers and sisters, are nests of scratching eagles—ready to rend ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... been doing down there?" was his very natural complaint. "I tried to listen, I tried to see; but beyond a few scattered words when your voices rose to an excited pitch, I have learned nothing but that you were in no danger save from the overthrow of your scheme. That has failed, has it not? You would have interrupted me long ago if you had ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... for the individual soldiers would sometimes prove to be in deep sympathy with the workmen who were making the trouble. At such crises, also, there would appear on the scene the anarchist, who wanted to overthrow society at once in the hope of bringing himself out nearer the top, and who was kept ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... Mendoza will give you such knowledge and assistance as may be necessary. France is on the point of an explosion. Every thing is prepared. It is impossible that it can be delayed above a week or two, and the only origin of the delay is in the determination to make the overthrow final. Acquaint your English officials with this. The monarchy of the Bourbons has signed its death-warrant. By suffering a legislature to be formed by the votes of the mere multitude, it has put property within the power of all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... office as a public trust, and not as a private perquisite to be used for the pecuniary advantage of himself or his family, or even his party. Is there intelligence enough in these cities, if thus organized within the parties, to produce the result which we desire? Why, the overthrow of the Tweed Ring was conclusive evidence of the preponderance of public virtue in the city of New York. In no other country in the world, and in no other political system than one which provides for and secures universal suffrage, would such a ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley

... easily impressible, and their habits of life are as armour of proof which renders them not easily vulnerable. Neither the rude club of a boisterous Reformer nor the pointed, delicate weapons of the authoress before me can overthrow ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... Sea. Rethpana might correspond with a Hebrew Reshphon, a derivative from Resheph, the god of fire. Canaanite mythology makes the sparks his "children" (Job v. 7) and it may be, therefore, that in this old name of the Dead Sea we have a reference to the overthrow of the cities of ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... therefore, that the prophecy was written a short time before the rededication of the temple in 165 B.C. This conclusion is confirmed by many other indications. For example the language, in part Aramaic, is that of the Greek period. The mistakes regarding the final overthrow of the Babylonian empire, which was by Cyrus, not Darius, and brought about not by strategy, but as a result of the voluntary submission of the Babylonians, are identical with the errors current in Greek tradition of the same late period. Here, as in the early narratives of Genesis, a true ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... Swift to the breach his comrades fly; "Make way for Liberty!" they cry. And through the Austrian phalanx dart, As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart! While instantaneous as his fall, Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all An earthquake could not overthrow A ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... that in this fresh day of growing intimacy she had as yet talked politics or "questions" of any sort so little! It made it all the more possible to escape from, to wholly overthrow in his mind, that first hostile image of her, impressed—strange unreason on his part!—by that first meeting with her in the crowd round the injured child, and in the hospital ward. Had she started any subject of mere controversy he would have held his own as stoutly as ever. But so long ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the reed and the war-drum. Then she came. He speaks through her. I want her to speak for me. My people are angry. There are butcher-birds among them. They hate you—they hate the cabin of the white man. The white men take away their room, overthrow their forests, kill their deer. There is danger ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth

... road must ever be preferr'd; Reason is here no guide, but still a guard: 'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow, And treat this passion more as friend than foe: A mightier power the strong direction sends, And several men impels to several ends: Like varying winds, by other passions tost, This drives them constant to a certain coast. Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please, Or (oft more strong than ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... down, east and west, north and south, of the greatest irregularity both in intensity and direction. This writhing of the earth—of the very foundations of the ground we walk on—caused our recent overthrow," concluded Mr. Henderson. ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... overthrow of Antony, Augustus held a consultation with Agrippa and Mecaenas about restoring the republican form of government; when Agrippa gave his opinion in favour of that measure, and Mecaenas opposed it. (149) The object ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... ogre, and he went round to every relation he had, and told them to collect wood and bring it to the tower where Halfman was. The men did as they were ordered, and soon the tower was glowing like coral, but when they flung themselves against it to overthrow it, they caught themselves on fire and were burnt to death. And overhead sat Halfman, laughing heartily. But the ogre's wife was still alive, for she had taken no ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... with death, and yet afterwards receive the transgressor to grace, without a plenary satisfaction, what is this but to lie, and to diminish his truth, righteousness, and faithfulness; yea, and also to overthrow the sanction and perfect holiness of his law. His mercy therefore must act so towards this sinner, that justice may be content, and that can never be, without a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... organized his forces in three bodies, "on foot, on horseback, and in chariots." At the head of them, he gave battle to the invaders so soon as they attacked him in his own proper country, and a desperate fight followed, in which the Egyptians, however, prevailed at last. The Hittites received a "great overthrow." The song of triumph composed for Seti on the occasion declared: "Pharaoh is a jackal which rushes leaping through the Hittite land; he is a grim lion exploring the hidden ways of all regions; he is a powerful bull with a pair of sharpened horns. ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... the environing ditches, and the black and white cattle everywhere attesting the immemorial Dutch ideal of a cow, were what at first occupied Kenton, and he was tardily won from them to the question of fighting over a country like that. It was a concession to his wife's impassioned interest in the overthrow of the Spaniards in a landscape which had evidently not changed since. She said it was hard to realize that Holland was not still a republic, and she was not very patient with Breckon's defence of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... sensitive lest anything should be said disparagingly against the institution he lends his aid to protect. That all institutions founded in patriarchal usage are of God's creation, he holds to be indisputable; and that working for their overthrow is a great crime, as well as an unpardonable sin, he never had the slightest doubt. He is careful of his clerical dress, which is of smoothest black; and remembering how essential are gold-framed spectacles, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... was vanquished, disarmed, and routed by the enemy at every turn, notwithstanding the fact that he had studied strategy so that his plans of employing and combining his resources would have filled any general officer with admiration. Nor did his overthrow have the merit of dignity. It was irresistibly droll, and no one laughed more heartily at the preposterous ending of the expedition than did the ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... afterwards, and regarded him as a man of great purity of character, of high moral and physical courage, but a fanatic and extremist in whatever he advocated. It was certainly the act of an insane man to attempt the invasion of the South, and the overthrow of slavery, with less than ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... unwrapped his mandolin and played, reclining in the boat while he rested from rowing. And the mandolin told them all, what the words of none could say, that they fared to adventure in the land of Romance, to the overthrow of dullness and the sameness of all drear schemes and the conquest of discontent in the spirit of man; and perhaps it sang of a time that has not yet come, or the ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... enables him to withstand all attempts. The superintendent in this age plays the part of the Colossus of Rhodes; the vessels pass beneath him and do not overthrow him." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... was one of the three countries that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830 (the others being Ecuador and Venezuela). A 40-year insurgent campaign to overthrow the Colombian Government escalated during the 1990s, undergirded in part by funds from the drug trade. Although the violence is deadly and large swaths of the countryside are under guerrilla influence, the movement lacks the military strength or popular support necessary to overthrow the government. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... recognizes it as a mark which just preceded their overthrow. Hence, the wrecked stage must lie just beyond, so he pulls in his horse and tries to pierce the darkness that lies like ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... said the president, solemnly, "the enemies of American liberty have made mighty and subtle efforts to overthrow our power. A more dangerous man, for his means and education, is not ranked among our foes than this peddler of Westchester. He is a spy—artful, delusive, and penetrating, beyond the abilities of any of his class. ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... of the United States, discharging the powers and duties of the office of President of the United States, and to report to this House, whether, in their opinion, the said Andrew Johnson, while in said office, has been guilty of acts which are designed or calculated to overthrow, subvert, or corrupt the Government of the United States, or any department or office thereof; and whether the said Andrew Johnson has been guilty of any act, or has conspired with others to do acts, which, in contemplation of the Constitution, are high crimes and misdemeanors, ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... torn from the Queen of the Night, great priests, because that Queen would overthrow our temple, and here Pamina is to remain till purified; if you will accept this noble youth for her companion, after they have both been taught in the ways of wisdom, follow my example," and immediately Sarastro blew a blast upon a horn. All ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... unrecorded overthrow Of all the world has ever known, Or ever been, has made itself So plain to you, and ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... superstitious conscience, and by the memory of the opposition he had met with from his German vassals, does he seem to have once thought of meeting force with force, and of returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow of Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before the Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henry has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown and sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... their performances with pedantic disquisitions on music, and flooring every man who ventures to hazard an opinion on the subject. These people, whether amateur or professional, must be extinguished; and the best way to accomplish their overthrow, and reduce them to their native insignificance, is, in the first instance, to take them at their word, and not urge them to sing. By so doing, they immediately take the pet, and sport mum for the rest of the evening. The same remarks apply to musical people ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... troops, composed of 50,000 men; all the officers are gained over. I am encamped on the Danube. I four days I can overthrow the emperor, who is, as you are aware, opposed to the progress of our order, and can replace him by whichever of the princes of his family the order may determine upon." ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... words, it was the leaders of Japan's conscript armies who inherited the real power, a fact made amply evident by the crushing of the Satsuma Rebellion by these new corps whose organization allowed them to overthrow the proudest and most valorous of the Samurai and incidentally to proclaim the triumph ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... shrill voice became a yell of ridicule and rage. Of course, Jimmie's organization saw to it that the Bolsheviki were informed in advance as to the character of this commission—something which was unnecessary, as it happened, because immediately after the overthrow of the Tsar there had begun a pilgrimage of Russian Socialists from New York and San Francisco, men who had seen the seamy side of American capitalism in the slums of the great cities, and who lost no time in providing the Russian ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... shepherd-staff that's broke The skull of many a wolf and fox Come filching lambs from Jesse's flocks. Loud laughs Goliath, and that laugh Can scatter chariots like blown chaff To rout: but David, calm and brave, Holds his ground, for God will save. Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh! Shame for Beauty's overthrow! (God's eyes are dim, His ears are shut.) One cruel backhand sabre cut— 'I'm hit! I'm killed!' young David cries, Throws blindly forward, chokes ... and dies. And look, spike-helmeted, grey, grim, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... killed the germ in the sour dough, and we were never again able to set up a fermentation in it. Doubtless the air at this altitude is free from the necessary spores or germs of ferment. Pasteur's and Tyndall's experiments on the Alps, which resulted in the overthrow of the theory of spontaneous generation, and the rehabilitation of the old dogma that life comes only from life, were recalled with interest, but without much satisfaction. We tried all sorts of ways of cooking the flour, but none with any ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... raises up enemies and obstacles, yielding advantages to whoever is disposed to cross us. As in trade it is notorious that the best course to thrive is by dealing squarely and truly; any fraud or cozenage appearing there doth overthrow a man's credit, and drive away custom from him: so in all other transactions, as he that dealeth justly and fairly will have his affairs proceed roundly, and shall find men ready to comply with him, so he that is observed to practise falsehood ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... other designs in your favour, which shall be disclosed in due season. Meanwhile, I desire you will still add one obligation to the debt which I have already incurred, and carry this billet in person to my Estifania, who, from the news of this fatal overthrow must be in ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... confirmed himself in those allurements, his reason is in amazement at all those pleasures which are proclaimed respecting conjugial love; yea, as was said above, he fights against them, and conquers, and, like a conqueror after the enemy's overthrow, he utterly destroys the camp of conjugial love in himself. These things are done by the natural man from the impulse of his adulterous love. We mention these circumstances, in order that it may be known, what is the true ground of the opposition of those ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... appearance ignominiously, the first heralding of the faith which was to supplant all the temples and altars and statues with which Athens had earned renown as a beautiful city, which was to overthrow the schools of the sneering philosophers, and even to remodel all the society and the policy of the world. And yet, in spite of this great and decisive triumph of Christianity, there was something curiously prophetic in the contemptuous rejection of its apostle at Athens. Was it not the first expression ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... of the subject, however, soon opened the eyes of Schiller to the other side of the question; for in Robertson's 'Charles the Fifth' he found Fiesco portrayed as an ambitious revolutionist who sought to overthrow the Dorias only in order that he might make himself the master of Genoa—in short as a Catiline instead of a Brutus. The dramatic problem then turned from the first upon the character of Fiesco. In the 'Dramaturgic' of Lessing ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... with the most severe and dreadful of all God's ways to his people; he never let them fall into sin unpardonable.' 'But these thoughts added grief and horror to me; I thought that all things wrought for my eternal overthrow.' So ready is the tender heart to write bitter things against itself, and as ready is the tempter to whisper despairing thoughts. In the midst of this distress he 'saw a glory in walking with God,' although ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... secretly to Ptolemy, and then offer ourselves to Caesar as volunteers to fight for the overthrow of her brother and the rescue of our Queen, the ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... OVERTHROW OF THE DIRECTORY: 18TH BRUMAIRE.—These reverses added to the unpopularity of the Directory. The discontent of the Jacobins with their government had given rise to strong measures of repression. On the other hand, the wealthy class were disgusted at the renewal of the war. A rising was threatened ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... Until the final overthrow of the Carlists by Alfonso XII., the Basque Provinces, amongst their most cherished fueros, were exempted from the hated conscription; but the victorious King made short work of that and of all other special rights ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... course of events, about the institution of slavery, commanded my undivided attention. Yet gentlemen greatly err in assuming that we of the North are acting under some wizard influence, and, out of pure malignity, are plotting the overthrow of slavery. There is no plot or general concert in the action of the North on this subject. We are, like the South, subject to general laws affecting mind and morals, as well as pecuniary concerns, which laws cannot be disregarded. We cannot act otherwise than we do. Ideas and principles ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... therefore classed as sexes of one species by Mr. Edward Doubleday, in his "Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera," in 1846. Later, female specimens were received from India closely resembling the male insect, and this was held to overthrow the authority of M. Westermann's observation, and to re-establish P. Polytes as a distinct species; and as such it accordingly appears in the British Museum List of Papilionidae in 1856, and in the Catalogue of the East India Museum in 1857. This ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... once a woman is taken with the love-passion, we must treat her as bitten; hide her antics from the public: that is the principal business. If she recovers, she resumes her place, and horrid old Nature, who drove her to the frenzy, is unlikely to bother or, at least, overthrow her again, unless she is one of the detestable wantons, past compassion or consideration. In the case reviewed, the woman has gone through fire, and is none the worse for her experiences: worth ten times what she was, to an honest man, if men could be got to see it. Some do. Of those men ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... derisively," replied Mistress Nutter; "and proceeds to use all those sophistical arguments, which we have so often heard, to pervert her mind, and overthrow her principles. But Alizon is proof against them all. Religion and virtue support her, and make her more than a match for her opponent. Equally vain are the spirit's attempts to seduce her by the offer of a life of sinful enjoyment. She ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... business, recall with something of horror the hardships and privations which were endured throughout the country from 1837 to 1842. The long-continued depression produced the revolution against the Democratic party which ended in the overthrow of Mr. Van Buren and the election of General Harrison as President of the United States in 1840. The Whig Congress that came into power at the same time, proceeded to enact the law popularly known as the tariff of 1842, which was strongly protective in its character though not so extreme ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... same the like effect on these? Surely, "had this counsel been of men, it would have come to nought." Under the circumstances in which Christianity made its appearance, it would have been easily overthrown; but the power of the world could not overthrow it, or prevent it from spreading far and wide. It continued—it prospered —and every opposing system fell before it. Means and instruments which human wisdom would have judged most suitable, could ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

... the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was no less than the overthrow of segregation in America. Its major provisions outlawed discrimination in places of amusement and public accommodation, in public education, labor unions, employment, and housing. It called for federal ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... tragedy, tackled with greater resolution, was composed and entirely finished. Curiously, the subject of it, Cromwell, was the same as that chosen by Victor Hugo, a few years later, to achieve the overthrow of classicism and the substitution of Romanticism ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... to destroy Troy, at another time by a national necessity to ward off Persian conquest. The Romans conceived of their rivalry with Carthage as a struggle from which only one state could survive. Spain, through an effort to overthrow the political power of the Moors in the peninsula and to make it all Christian, was educated up to a national purpose to make Spain a pure "Christian" state, in the dogmatic and ecclesiastical sense of the word. Moors and Jews were expelled at great cost and loss. Germany and Italy cherished for ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... but deceives the eye; Flattery leads the ear awry; Wealth doth but enchant the wit; Want, the overthrow of it; While in Wisdom's worthy grace, ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various

... congratulating you, gentlemen, on the establishment of this "Southern Society of New York." After the long season of strife and discontent this is one of the many signs which mark the vernal equinox, and foretell the coming summer. I believe, notwithstanding the infinite disasters of the war, the overthrow of slavery, and with it all the industrial system of the South, and the needless loss and the humiliations of reconstruction—I believe that there is to-day a kinder and more cordial fraternity between ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... corresponding to the trials of the philosophers in Athens. The main cause of this was, no doubt, that free-thinking in the fifth century B.C. invaded Hellas, and specially Athens, like a flood which threatened to overthrow everything; in Rome, on the other hand, Greek philosophy made its way in slowly and gradually, and this took place at a time when in the country of its origin it had long ago found a modus vivendi with popular religion and ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... he had spoken it would have been impossible for me to tell him that my simplicity and not my cleverness had caused his overthrow. From this I learnt that simplicity is the keenest weapon and a beautiful refinement of cleverness; and I affected it extremely. I pushed it so far that I could make the squire dance in his seat with suppressed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... marvelled at the ship and its equipment. One canoe kept hanging under the stern and an Indian pilfered a pillow and two shirts from the cabin windows. The mate shot him in the breast and killed him. A boat was lowered to recover the articles "when one of them in the water seized hold of it to overthrow it, but the cook seized a sword and cut off one of his hands and he was drowned." At the head of Manhattan Island the vessel was again attacked. Arrows were shot and two more Indians were killed, then the attack was renewed and ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... most important thing to be done, was to overthrow entirely the system of government in which Cardinal Mazarin had imprisoned the King and the realm. A foreigner, risen from the dregs of the people, who thinks of nothing but his own power and his own greatness, cares nothing for the state, except in its relation to himself. He despises ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... of making further observations upon it. Mr. Bynoe, however, having since visited Australia, has turned his attention to the subject, and the result of his experience, which will be found below, tends to overthrow the opinion I have previously expressed, to the effect, that this substance is the exudation of a tree, not the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... Azores on the 3rd of September, the Desire fell in with a Plymouth vessel coming from Lisbon, which gave the voyagers the glorious information of the overthrow of the Spanish Armada. ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... ennoble it, and shed a glory over it by the example of life and character which they have bequeathed. "The names and memories of great men," says an able writer, "are the dowry of a nation. Widowhood, overthrow, desertion, even slavery, cannot take away from her this sacred inheritance.... Whenever national life begins to quicken.... the dead heroes rise in the memories of men, and appear to the living to stand by in solemn spectatorship and approval. No country can be lost which feels herself overlooked ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... Joey B. He had spied strangers in due form, and out they must go. So they filed forth, the Prince of Wales at the head of them, the proud English Peers following, and by another exit the Envoy of the most potent sovereign of the Continent, representative of a nation still flushed with the overthrow of France—all publicly and peremptorily expelled at the raising of the finger of an uneducated, obscure Irishman, who, when not concerned with the affairs of the Imperial Parliament, was curing bacon at Belfast and selling it at enhanced ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... under 200,000 marks; and only during three years above 300,000. The produce of the mines is exceedingly fluctuating. The successive revolutions which have agitated the country have tended very considerably to check mining operations. On the overthrow of Santa Cruz, Don Miguel Otero, the most active and intelligent mine owner of Cerro de Pasco, was banished; an event which had a very depressing influence on all the mining transactions of that part of South America. Within ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... you must be very careful about your alliances. The Jews always got into trouble when they married with the nations round about. The houses of Ahab and of Solomon lost their kingdom by that sin. That was the cause of the overthrow of David's kingdom. Families who marry for wealth, and marry the godly to the ungodly, always bring ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

... answered Hester, firmly. "He must discern thee in thy true character. What may be the result I know not. But this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid. So far as concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in my hands. Nor do I—whom the scarlet letter has disciplined to truth, though it be the truth of red-hot iron entering into the soul—nor do I perceive ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... insight would trust you instinctively. But there isn't much to tell. Only that when I married my husband he held a living in Shropshire, with a sure promise of quick promotion; and then Doubt crept in which he could not overthrow, and after a long struggle he gave it up because his conscience would not let him be ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... Hence the new law.[6330] M. Beugnot, who presented it, clearly explains its aims and object: the Government "must assemble the moral forces of the country and unite them with each other to combat with and overthrow the common enemy," the anti-social party, "which, victorious, would have no mercy on anybody," neither on the University nor on the Church. Consequently, the University abandons its monopoly: the State is no longer the sole purveyor ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... poets, warriors, statesmen, captains, lords, explorers, wits and gentlemen, that crowded the courts and times of those sovereigns still fill'd the atmosphere—when America commencing to be explor'd and settled commenc'd also to be suspected as destin'd to overthrow the old standards and calculations—when Feudalism, like a sunset, seem'd to gather all its glories, reminiscences, personalisms, in one last gorgeous effort, before the advance of a new day, a new incipient genius—amid the social and domestic circles of that period—indifferent ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... sense of decorum, was tabu. If an anti were setting forth her views when a suffragist entered the room she instantly ceased and began to talk about humidity or the Balkans. A suffragist would no more have marshalled her arguments for the overthrow of an equal than she would have corrected a point of etiquette. But each went out with zeal into New England villages for the conversion ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... the last question that removed all lingering doubt of the native's treachery. He had returned to bring about their overthrow, but knew not where to look for them. When he could ascertain whither they had fled he and his brother miscreants ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... oppose his entrance. But his heart was not moved, nor did he tremble at the presence of these deformed ones, knowing that there were many with him more powerful than with them, even unto his triumph and their overthrow. Therefore stood he fixed in faith as Mount Sion, because mountains of angels were around him, and the Lord encompassed His servant great and mighty unto the battle. And the holy prelate, knowing that ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... she, in a tremulous voice, "that you are two against one. I do not think it honorable in Kaunitz to uphold my son against his sovereign. Tell me, prince, do you come hither to break your faith, and overthrow your empress?" ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... much in the confidence of Madame de Maintenon, and had long discourses with her at Saint Cyr. As he was, however, of a very ill figure, had but little support at Court, and appeared exceedingly simple, M. de Cambrai believed he could easily overthrow him. To do this, he determined to make use of Madame Guyon, whose new spirituality had already been so highly relished by Madame de Maintenon. He persuaded this latter to allow Madame Guyon to enter Saint Cyr, where they could discourse together much more at their ease ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... blood of beast can be a means of reconciling God—all these circumstances must have been absolutely dangerous and fatal, both to the local centralisation of worship, and to the statutory sacrificial system. The proclamation of Jesus (and of Stephen) as to the overthrow of the Temple, is therefore no absolutely new thing, nor is the fact that Judaism fell back upon the law and the Messianic hope, a mere result of the destruction of the Temple. This change was rather prepared by the inner development. Whatever point in the preaching of Jesus ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... hell have I the overthrow Accomplish'd, none now needeth To fear the pains of endless woe, Who Me and My word heedeth; He's freed from Satan's grievous yoke, Whose head I bruis'd, whose might I broke, And ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... overthrow all Charles's good resolution. His fickle mind, his shallow principle, gave way. Stifling his convictions of duty, and silencing the "still small voice," he went home: and there was no joy in heaven over ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic

... materials for other historians, and to be read by those who wish to derive their knowledge of facts from the first sources of information. The accuracy of his narrative has often been attacked with vehemence, and often, it must be confessed, with success, but not so often as to overthrow the general ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various

... to have first claimed us for his victims in consequence of the erroneous delivery of a favourable message from some powerful supernatural being, or because of the failure of some enterprise which would have resulted in the overthrow of Death, or by virtue of a pact or covenant between Death and the gods. Thus it will be seen that death is often (though by no means invariably) the penalty of infringing a command, or of indulging in a culpable curiosity. But there are cases, as we shall see, in which ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... treason. The German Strafgesetzbuch thus distinguishes between high treason (hochverrat) and the lesser crime of landesverrat. High treason consists in murdering or attempting to murder a sovereign or Prince of Germany or an attempt by violence to overthrow the Imperial Government or any State thereof. This alone ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck

... spread; it is replacing the finer type of Southerner with vulgar money-getters; it is burying the sweeter beauties of Southern life beneath pretence and ostentation. For every social ill the panacea of Wealth has been urged,—wealth to overthrow the remains of the slave feudalism; wealth to raise the "cracker" Third Estate; wealth to employ the black serfs, and the prospect of wealth to keep them working; wealth as the end and aim of politics, and as the legal tender for ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... "The news of their overthrow in the field of Flodden reached Edinburgh on the day after the battle, and overwhelmed the inhabitants with grief and confusion. The streets were crowded with women seeking intelligence about their friends, clamouring ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... still occupied, while the Austrians denied them access to Costa, which had been examined on the previous day. Reports from either flank gave similar information; there was nothing, therefore, to suggest the speedy and dramatic overthrow ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... whitings do walk forests to chase harts, And herrings their horns in forests boldly blow, And marmsets mourn in moors and lakes, And gurnards shoot rooks out of a crossbow, And goslings hunt the wolf to overthrow, And sprats bear spears in armes of defence, Then put ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... logical sequence. Such evils do not invalidate or destroy the force of our assertion that social order is derived from and is based upon the order of nature. Although savage passions, excited by an imperfect understanding of the truth, do from time to time cause the overthrow of given societies, and arouse the horror and alarm of pessimist votaries of myth, nature is not thereby overcome; she still triumphs, and restores the order which has been interrupted, so far as the instinct of conservatism and the hereditary impulse to that special form of association to ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... absent himself from me that instead of opposing him it would be that which I should myself require—or if he thought that any lurking feeling, yet he could not think that, should lead me to him would he endeavour to overthrow the only hope he could have of ever seeing me again; a lover, there was madness in the thought, yet he was my lover, would not act thus. No, he had determined to die, and he wished to spare me the misery of ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... by every means his authority from within, he missed no opportunity of extending his rule without. In 1803 he declared war against the Suliots, whose independence he had frequently endeavoured either to purchase or to overthrow. The army sent against them, although ten thousand strong, was at first beaten everywhere. Ali then, as usual, brought treason to his aid, and regained the advantage. It became evident that, sooner or later, the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to tell me that this is a final overthrow?" said Yeovil in a shaking voice; "are we to remain a ...
— When William Came • Saki

... destruction of the swine and the routing of the merchants were sensational and erratic exhibitions. If reformers today should destroy herds of animals, except to protect public health by due process of law, or overthrow banks, they would be liable to arrest in any city of Christendom. Therefore the consensus of opinion denies exoneration to Jesus for his spasmodic ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd

... that the darkest picture of slavery is not to be found in the jail of the slave-trader, but rather in a convocation of professed ministers of the Gospel of Christ, expelling from the Board of a Society formed to enlighten the heathen of other nations, all who consistently labor for the overthrow of a system which denies a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures to near three ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... the mellow stops, Ever swaying in their tops, To the playing of an organist unseen. And the breezes bring the balm Of the solitude and psalm, From that indolence of calm, In the land of pine and palm, Over hills, and over rivers and savannas, Till my feelings undergo All their mortal overthrow, In celestial strains which flow, In a song of peace below, From those regions ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... be lost, my crown is lost"— Wrote Charles to this trusted chief, And he must bring it prompt relief. The foe's true strength he did not know, But dazzled much by victory's glow He hoped with ease to overthrow The untrained volunteers; Nor did he for brave Cromwell care, Tho' he had asked "is Cromwell there?" Would not his grenadiers Scatter those yeomen to their fields, To hold their ploughs instead of shields? Thus confident of great success ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant

... The overthrow is complete. France, subject to the Revolutionary Government, resembles a human being forced to walk with his head down and to think ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... hard pressed, she fairly bolted into one of them. Maida went in headlong after her, and the stook began to be much agitated in various directions. At length the sheaves tumbled down; and the hare and the dog, terrified alike at their overthrow, ran different ways, to the great amusement ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... Nothing long time hath happy been. The restlesse Fates of peopled-Cities, passe: In a few hour's destroy'd w'have seen, In many yeares what never raised was. He gave to Chance long time, that said One day's enough, whole Kingdomes t'overthrow: Each moment holds a people swayd Under a fatall and exalted blow. Being neere thy death, then, Publius, spare To load the Gods, with thy blasphemous plaints; That Funeralls so frequent are, Or death so much thy neighbours house haunts. ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski

... universe to make room for a dynamic mankind that had long ago forgotten the Sleepers of the home world. But no, he decided. Out there he would not be giving so much to mankind as he was here and now. However decadent these people were, he knew that they were men. Nelson knew that somehow he had to overthrow the Sleepers. ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page

... would effect a revolution. But the parties which the tyrants had trampled upon were rather exasperated than ruined, and they seized every opportunity to rally the people under their standard, and effect an overthrow of the tyrants. Sparta, whose constitution remained aristocratic, generally was ready to assist any State in throwing off the yoke of the usurpers. In some States, like Athens, every change favored the rise of the people, who gradually obtained the ascendency. ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... hundreds. Abdala, the sabandar, and one of the king's near kinsmen, were slain, with many others, and the secretary was wounded. The king was by the shore at this time, attended by a vast many, people; and, on learning the death of the sabandar, and the overthrow of this treachery, the furious infidels murdered all of our people who were on shore, except eight, who were put in irons as slaves. In this great calamity we lost sixty-eight persons, of whom we are not certain how many may be in captivity, having only knowledge of these eight. We lost at this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... escape from it, as Napoleon studied it to make himself its master, and my campaign, as well as his, always had Russia for its field. This power was the last asylum of the oppressed; it was therefore that which the conqueror of Europe wished to overthrow. ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... Duke, "do you propose That we should overthrow your Colonel's scheme?" And HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, Replied at once with never-failing tact: "Oh, sir, I know this cursed country well. Entrust yourself and all your host to me; I'll lead you safely by a secret path Into the heart of COLONEL JOOLES' ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... improved structure, made to order; your sword-canes, secret arms, and tickets of entry; quick, by backstairs passages, rally round the Son of Sixty Kings. An effervescence probably got up by d'Orleans and Company, for the overthrow of Throne and Altar: it is said her Majesty shall be put in prison, put out of the way; what then will his Majesty be? Clay for the Sansculottic Potter! Or were it impossible to fly this day; a brave Noblesse suddenly all rallying? Peril threatens, hope invites: Dukes de ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... failed. Her discourse on the possibilities of bettering his position might as well have been spoken into the ears of the senior ram; and if the ram had responded, as he probably would, by pinning Lady Lottie against the wall of the barn, her overthrow would have been no more complete nor unmerited than that she actually received from ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... wager he made himself that he would not have returned to town yet, and the good-fortune was almost too much for his shaken nerves. The cordial of his friend's greeting—they had been chums at Harvard—completed his overthrow. As he sank upon the professional sofa, where so many other cases had been diagnosticated, he broke into tears. "Hello, old fellow!" the doctor said, encouragingly, and more tenderly than he would have dealt with some women. ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... together, And Rome attends her fate from our resolves. How shall we treat this bold aspiring man? Success still follows him, and backs his crimes; Pharsalia gave him Rome, Egypt has since Received his yoke, and the whole Nile is Caesar's. Why should I mention Juba's overthrow, And Scipio's death? Numidia's burning sands Still smoke with blood. 'Tis time we should decree What course to take. Our foe advances on us, And envies us even Lybia's sultry deserts. Fathers, pronounce your thoughts: are they still fix'd To hold it out, and fight it to the last? Or ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison

... arrangement of venerable trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Western world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honored were they, seemed to have lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had already passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were grievously imperilled by the Gaul's last assault upon the walls of Rome. As if confident in ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... was wholly exercised in the cause of tranquility it would be certainly rash to assert. At the same time it may be doubted whether any better choice was open to the king—short of some very drastic policy indeed. That he used his great authority to overthrow his own enemies and to aggrandize his own house goes almost without saying. The titular sovereignty of the king could hope to count for little beside the real sovereignty of the earl, and the house of Kildare naturally loomed far larger and more imposingly ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... then, and say that the fundamental conflict of wills in Europe, which has produced this general war, is a conflict between the German will, organized by Prussia to overthrow the ancient Christian tradition of Europe (to her advantage directly; and indirectly, as she proposes, to the advantage of a supposedly necessary German governance of the world under Prussian organization), and the will of the more ancient and better founded Western ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... statute.... It is properly resorted to where doubts or ambiguities arise upon the words of the enacting part, for if they are clear and unambiguous, there seems little room for interpretation, except in cases leading to an obvious absurdity or a direct overthrow of the intention expressed in the preamble. [Story on the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage



Words linked to "Overthrow" :   ending, disturbance, subversive activity, revolutionize, bring down, conclusion, depose, rule, subversion, force out, termination, decree, override



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