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Overturn   /ˈoʊvərtˌərn/   Listen
Overturn

verb
(past & past part. overturned; pres. part. overturning)
1.
Turn from an upright or normal position.  Synonyms: tip over, tump over, turn over.  "The canoe tumped over"
2.
Cause to overturn from an upright or normal position.  Synonyms: bowl over, knock over, tip over, tump over, turn over, upset.  "The clumsy customer turned over the vase" , "He tumped over his beer"
3.
Rule against.  Synonyms: override, overrule, overthrow, reverse.
4.
Cause the downfall of; of rulers.  Synonyms: bring down, overthrow, subvert.  "Subvert the ruling class"
5.
Cancel officially.  Synonyms: annul, countermand, lift, repeal, rescind, reverse, revoke, vacate.  "Lift an embargo" , "Vacate a death sentence"
6.
Change radically.  Synonyms: revolutionise, revolutionize.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Overturn" Quotes from Famous Books



... the society of Saint-Vincent de Paul and the International. But this latter commits too many imbecilities to have a long life. I admit that it may overcome the troops at Versailles and overturn the government, the Prussians will enter Paris, and "order will reign" at Warsaw. If, on the contrary, it is conquered, the reaction will be furious and ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... and an agitator. He was not satisfied with things as they were, nor willing to give time an opportunity to improve them. He took hold of the horns of the altar with daring hands. He denounced the Church and the world,—undertook to overturn every thing, and to put all on a new foundation. He entered on a crusade against what he called "pulpit preaching," whereby particular persons, called ministers, "may deliver what they please, and none must object; and this we must pay ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... he was barely an instant too soon. To his dismay, Mr. Farnum saw something dark, unwieldy, rising through the water. It appeared to be coming up fairly under the stern of the shore boat, threatening to overturn the little craft and plunge them all into ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham

... of education will ultimately overturn all order in the land. Among ancient Pagan nations, where the poor were comparatively ignorant—where they did not know their rights—it was easy to hold them in bondage; but now things have changed. Discontent in ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... inhabited the cave was now a constant topic, particularly with George, who was determined, sooner or later, to find out something more about it. With this end in view he made secret preparations, particularly in constructing a lamp which would not be liable to overturn or be put out by ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... a private in the Guards, gave evidence that the object of the conspiracy was to overturn the present system of government; to unite in companies, and to get arms. They subscribed, and the object of the subscription was, to pay delegates to go into the country, and to defray the expense of printing their papers. All ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... retire to Oxford, our author then attended him, and was created Dr. of the civil laws. When the Royal cause declined, Stapleton thought proper to addict himself to study, and to live quietly under a government, no effort of his could overturn, and as he was not amongst the most conspicuous of the Royalists, he was suffered to enjoy his solitude unmolested. At the restoration he was again promoted in the service of King Charles II. and held a place in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... the country, the discontented will flock round my standard, and swell my army. I will announce to the people the abolition of servitude and of the tyrannical governments of the pashas. I shall arrive at Constantinople with large masses of soldiers. I shall overturn the Turkish empire, and found in the East a new and grand empire, which will fix my place in the records of posterity. Perhaps I shall return to Paris by Adrianople, or by Vienna, after having annihilated the house of Austria." After I had made some observations which these grand projects ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... were worn in the country, and it was the business of his valet to keep them well brushed. How the little old man used to watch me, objecting in a way to my spinning my top in the hall, fearful lest I should overturn the chair on which the hat stood: sometimes that did ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... 1689" [About this time Viscount Tarbat boasted to General Mackay of his great influence with his countrymen, especially the Clan Mackenzie, and assured him "that though Seaforth should come to his own country and among his friends, he (Tarbat) would overturn in eight days more than the Earl could advance in six weeks yet be proved as backward as Seaforth or any other of the Clan. And though Redcastle, Coul, and others of the name of Mackenzie came, they fell not on final ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... beyond the heroic age of the revolution and the establishment of the Kingdom. It survives down through Ricasoli, Lanza, Sella and Minghetti, down, that is, to the occupation of Rome and the systemization of our national finances. The parliamentary overturn of 1876, indeed, marks not the end, but rather an interruption, on the road that Italy had been following since the beginning of the century. The outlook then changed, and not by the capriciousness or weakness of men, but by a necessity of history which ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various

... our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretenses, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... to pass the Alps last October at Mentz. The first ground-stone of the throne of Italy was, strange as it may seem, laid on the banks of the Rhine: with such an extensive foundation, it must be difficult to shake, and impossible to overturn it." ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... pillage, and Cressida's conciliatory methods with her family made him sarcastic and spiteful. But he had to make terms, somehow, with the Garnets and Horace, and with the husband, if there happened to be one. He sometimes reminded them, when they fell to wrangling, that they must not, after all, overturn the boat under them, and that it would be better to stop just before they drove her wild than just after. As he was the only one among them who understood the sources of her fortune,—and they knew it,—he was able, when it came to a general set-to, to proclaim sanctuary for the ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... Francis the Second. Finally, the Prince of Conde would set over against the petition of the triumvirate, one of his own, containing for its principal articles that the Edict of January, which his enemies seek to overturn, shall be observed inviolate; that all the king's subjects of every order and condition shall be maintained in their rights and privileges; that the professors of the reformed faith shall be protected until the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... 13th of August, and, when proceeding along the shore at midday, a hippopotamus struck the canoe with her forehead, lifting one half of it quite out of the water, so as nearly to overturn it. The force of the butt she gave tilted Mashauana out into the river; the rest of us sprang to the shore, which was only about ten yards off. Glancing back, I saw her come to the surface a short way off, and look to the canoe, as if to see if she had done much mischief. It was a female, whose ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... without bringing about any revolution in it, so good were the morals which they drew in with the mother's milk. I call them the 'Berserkers,' because when I last saw them they were perfect little monsters of strength and swiftness, and because we shall rely upon their prowess to overturn certain planks—of which more anon; on which account I will inspire them and their mother beforehand with a ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... bee-bird; and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called bee-wine. As he ran about he used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of bees. This ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... on the hillside. On the eyes of all these gleamed the blaze of the burning church, and each one felt, as he had never realized before, the strength of that mysterious band which was just putting forth its power to overturn and nullify a system of laws that sought to clothe an inferior and servile race with the rights and privileges theretofore exercised ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... follows and tries to overturn us I'll have to shoot him," said the doctor cheerfully. "But he won't. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... hard to be obliged to go on deck when he was sick, especially as there was no need of his services there. He raised his head, and sat upright in the berth. The movement seemed completely to overturn his stomach again. But what a chance this was, thought he, to show poor Mollie that he was in earnest, and to convince her that he had really reformed his manners. With a desperate struggle he leaped out of his berth, and put ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... Even great earthquakes seldom produce geological effects of much importance. Landslides may be shaken down from the sides of mountains and hills, and cracks may be opened in the surface deposits of plains; but the transient shiver, which may overturn cities and destroy thousands of human lives, runs through the crust and leaves it much the ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... task for him to show the fallacies inherent in these propositions, and thus he begins early to feel his own power of securing himself against the influence of such sophistical arguments, which must finally lose, for him, all their illusory power. And, although the same blows which overturn the edifice of his opponent are as fatal to his own speculative structures, if such he has wished to rear; he need not feel any sorrow in regard to this seeming misfortune, as he has now before him ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... long-continued isolation, either they neither knew nor desired such advantages, or, if they knew them, feared they might be purchased at too high a price in the introduction of foreigners, who, as in the case of the Portuguese, centuries before, might seek to overturn the empire. It was too much, therefore, to expect that the Japanese would in all the particulars of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... the Milanese and the states of the Pope, for the last two years, sailed, they sent us word, with two or three hundred ships, the saints at first knew whither. Some said, it was to destroy the holy sepulchre; some to overturn the Grand Turk; and some thought to seize the islands. There was a craft in here, the same week, which said he had got possession of the Island of Malta; in which case we might look out for trouble in Elba. I had my ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... his associates, had produced a contempt for religion through every rank of society. The people of France were taught by their literati that the Bible was at war with their liberties; and that they could never expect to overturn the throne till they had, first, broken down the "altar." HERE THE TIGER ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880

... but an instant until I was past the first rock, and almost on top of the second. I was pulling with every ounce of strength, and was almost clear of the rock when the stern touched it gently. I had no idea the boat would overturn, but thought she would swing around the rock, heading bow first into the stream, as had been done before on several occasions. Instead of this she was thrown on her side with the bottom of the boat held ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... we allow to come lusts, foulnesses, meannesses, worldlinesses, passions, sins, and all the crew of reptiles and wild beasts that we sometimes admit there. If we hallow Christ in our hearts, in any true fashion, He will turn out the money-changers and overturn the tables. And if we desire to hallow Him in our hearts, we too, must by His Spirit's help, purge the temple that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... heard that story before, from natives; and it may well be founded on fact. The terrific gusts of desert wind overturn the stones under which the scorpions lie; the fragile beasts are exposed to the blast and, being relatively light, swept skyward across leagues of country with the flying sand. A similar explanation has been given for those old accounts of frog ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... with a high hand at once to overturn the whole system of Altamont House, and had failed. She had declared her detestation of dinners, and been heard in silence. She had kept her room thrice when they were given, but without success. She ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... with them, were turned into the most unrelenting hatred. The Portuguese, not content with the great privileges they already enjoyed, formed a conspiracy with certain of the native Christian princes to depose the Ziogoon, overturn the government, and take the power into their own hands. Letters containing the details of this plot were discovered by the Dutch, and straightway sent to the monarch. The statement has been made by Spanish writers, that this conspiracy had no existence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... public domain to British subjects. Fremont did not even know war had broken out between the United States and Mexico, yet he organized at first a defensive war in the Sacramento Valley for the protection of American settlers, and blood was shed; then he resolved to overturn the Mexican authority, and establish "California Independence." The celerity with which all this was accomplished was romantic. In thirty days all Northern California was freed from Mexican rule—the flag ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... catch-as-catch-can wrestle Pete Dickerson might have been able to overturn Hiram Strong. But the latter did not propose to give the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... correspond, as correlates of sinking or surrender, to the different mystical states. [Colors, etc., of alchemy.] Two passages of Arabi may be quoted: "My heart is eligible for every form [of the religious cult]; for it is said that the heart (root: kalaba overturn, to alter oneself) is so called from its continual changing." It changes in accordance with the various (divine) influences that it feels, according to the various states of the mystical illumination. This variation of experiences is a result of the variation of the divine appearances, which ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... they raced, and, as the meadow was a large one, they had plenty of room. Alice might be able to guide them until they tired themselves out, but there was danger that they would turn into a fence, or that the machine would overturn ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope

... loud with scorn. "They want to overturn law and order, and sell the fatherland to the Germans! They say the sum is settled ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... apt to be, as Frederic of Prussia expressed it, on the side of strong battalions, so far as human vision can penetrate. Of one thing, however, I feel certain, and that is that they who are now the most eager to overturn everything to effect present purposes, will be made to repent of it bitterly, either in their own persons, or in ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... consequently had no civic rights save those granted to him by the ruling class. His idea of goods must have, at least, become chimerical at a very early date, as this equality was so little suspected by the ancients that Plutarch,[21] after having spoken of the efforts of Lycurgus to overturn the inequality of wealth among the Spartans, accuses Numa of having neglected a necessity so important. It is moreover difficult to see how Montesquieu could think that testamentary disposition tended to maintain equality when the privilege was accorded ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson

... debt is secured in the shape of mortgage, there is little left in the way of security to the affluent and unrepresented. They must unite their means to prevent destruction; and woe to that land which gives so plausible an excuse to the rich and intelligent for combining their means to overturn the liberties of a nation, as is to be found in abuses like those just named. We very well know that the idea is prevalent among us of the irresistible power of popular sway; but he has lived in vain who has seen the course of events in other nations ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper

... ambush lie the trap and gun; Or yon broad board, which guards each tempting prize, "Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies." There stands a cottage with an open door, Its garden undefended blooms before: Her wheel is still, and overturn'd her stool, While the lone Widow seeks the neighb'ring pool: This gives us hope, all views of town to shun - No! here are tokens of the Sailor-son; That old blue jacket, and that shirt of check, And silken kerchief for the seaman's neck; Sea-spoils ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... perhaps, hear, then," continued the man, "that there was a great search made, after the overturn, for a fine diamond cross, belonging to the lady in the carriage? That lady, though I did not know it till lately, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... To overturn a dynasty, to suppress an organized system of feudal laws, and to eradicate an ancient belief, the principles of which had firmly established themselves among the populace in the course of centuries, was a harder task than that of bringing under the Spanish yoke detached ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... California, Texas, and New Mexico. He defeated the Spaniards at Zampico, and held Vera Cruz against the French, but was badly beaten at Molina del Rey by the United States Army under General Taylor (1847). He was recalled to the Presidency in 1853, but overthrown in 1855. He attempted to overturn the Republic in 1867; was captured and sentenced to death, but was pardoned on condition that he left the country. He retired to the United States until 1872, when a general amnesty allowed his return to Mexico. Like other Mexican Presidents, ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry

... dumping ground, standing between the handles of the wheel-barrow, Alfred attempted to overturn it. The handles overturned Alfred. Down the steep incline, rolled Alfred, wheel-barrow and contents in one conglomerate mass, Alfred under the avalanche of cows' ears, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... the Ptolemaic system. Between the wit of Sagredo, and the powerful philosophy of Salviati, the peripatetic sage is baffled in every discussion; and there can be no doubt that Galileo aimed a more fatal blow at the Ptolemaic system by this mode of discussing it, than if he had endeavoured to overturn it ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... Whether a bank in private hands might not even overturn a government? and whether this was not the case of the Bank of St. George in Genoa? [Footnote: See the Vindication and Advancement of our national Constitution and ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... article was hungry, taking all the interest the law allows, and as much more as it could get. This year the crop broke all records for abundance, but the price is down and the railroads, trying to recoup for two bad years, have stiffened the freight rates. The net result is our political overturn." ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... on advances made to the government; and gradually, under its auspices, the vast system of English banking, which gives tone to that of the world, grew up. Let us see with what results; they may be expressed in a few words: every ten or fifteen years, a terrific commercial overturn, with intermediate epochs of speculation, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... possible for Mrs. Willoughby to look back and discern the faces of the travelers who were moving along the road behind her, what a sudden overturn there would have been in her feelings, and what a blight would have fallen upon her spirits! But Mrs. Willoughby remained in the most blissful ignorance of the persons of these travelers, and so was able to maintain the ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... "And then the overturn," said the old man, smiling, "and the nineteenth century saw itself as a man who has lost his clothes whilst bathing, and has to walk naked ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... had thought with my bunch of keys, All underneath a green hill's side, To overturn her bliss with ease. In such peril through ...
— The Dalby Bear - and Other Ballads • Anonymous

... this unpleasant circumstance caused him, no doubt, to feel in an irritable state of mind. On reaching the studio, and just as he entered the door, he was inundated by the contents of a bucket of water, which one of his companions had suspended over the door, and managed to overturn on the head of Nicholas. Furious at this unexpected douche, he flew at its unlucky contriver, and gave him a hearty beating. There were three other lads in the studio; they all attacked Nicholas, who, however, proved more than their match, overthrowing two of his assailants, and obliging ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... change the nature of things, or make what is in itself a deposit become your own property. The two ideas exclude each other. You have but a false semblance of property: and all the efforts of the passions, all the sophisms of interest, will not overturn essential differences. Therefore it is that a moral truth is so imperious; because, like all truth, it is what it is, and shapes itself to please no caprice. Always the same, and always present, little as we may like it, it inexorably condemns, with a ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... could be hardly called a road, had been worn by the wheels of native carts. These were narrower than our vans, and one of our wheels was generally upon a higher level, threatening on some occasions to overturn. The country around us was desolate in its aridity. We passed through the ruins of an ancient city over which the plough had triumphed, and literally not one stone was left upon another. A few stone columns of a rough description, some of which were broken, were lying ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... steering wheel with a suddenness that threatened to overturn the Wondership. The auto-craft plunged wildly to one ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner

... as it is that she should not receive from us a license to practice law? The rule in both cases, until the law of 1861, rested upon the same common law usage and could have pleaded the same antiquity. In the one case it was never pretended that this court could properly overturn the rule, and we do not see how we could be justified should we disregard it in the other. The principle can not be too strictly and conscientiously observed, that each of the three departments of the Government ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... become Intercessor, and so give a sanction to Mariolatry, which in evil is second only to idolatry. He did not lift woman to the position of ruler, nor did he give any sanction to the wild vagaries of the Christless ones, who are striving to overturn the foundations of society, and who rebel against motherhood, wifehood, and sisterhood; but he did turn the attention of the world towards the graces of womanhood, and while he turned his back upon those manly qualities ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... this health-worrier is the nervous type, who is sure that every dog loose on the streets is going to bite; every horse driven behind is surely going to run away; every chauffeur is either reckless, drunk, or sure to run into a telegraph pole, have a collision with another car, overturn his car at the corner, or run down the crossing pedestrian; every loitering person is a tramp, who is a burglar in disguise; every stranger is an enemy, or at least must be regarded with suspicion. Such worriers always seem to prefer to look on the dark side of the unknown rather than on the ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... their king and the king obeys the law'—Solon. D.W.] Ministers of State, who are generally so blinded by the splendour of their fortune as never to be content with what the laws allow, make it their business to overturn them; and Cardinal de Richelieu laboured at it more constantly than any other, and with equal ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... gained a temporary ascendancy. On the 16th of July, the new government displaced Vice-Admiral Truguet, the able Minister of Marine, and appointed M. Pleville le Peley his successor. With the usual madness of party, the new minister and his employer hastened to overturn all that had been done by their predecessors. They discharged the sailors, dismantled the fleet, and even sold some of the frigates and corvettes by public auction. When the Directory regained their power, September 4th, ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... bodily off the rails. This may seem very simple, but the dead weight of the iron truck half on the sleepers was enormous, and the engine wheels skidded vainly several times before any hauling power was obtained. At last the truck was drawn sufficiently far back, and I called for volunteers to overturn it from the side while the engine pushed it from the end. It was very evident that these men would be exposed to considerable danger. Twenty were called for, and there was an immediate response. But only nine, including the major ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... proportion of criminals to the entire population is TWELVE TIMES greater than in France, where education of any sort has only been imparted to two-fifths of the community.[13] These facts are startling—they run adverse to many preconceived ideas—they overturn many favourite theories; but they are not the less facts, and it is by facts alone that correct conclusions are to be drawn in regard to human affairs. In America too, it appears from the criminal returns, many of which, in particular towns and states, are quoted in Buckingham's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... of the lead-dog, and vanished in the white woods. The dogs' wild impulses roused. They raised the hunting-cry of the pack, surged against their collars, and swerved aside in pursuit. Daylight, yelling "Whoa!" struggled with the gee-pole and managed to overturn the sled into the soft snow. The dogs gave up, the sled was righted, and five minutes later they were flying along the hard-packed trail again. The lynx was the only sign of life they had seen in two days, and it, leaping velvet-footed and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... that was done by that wicked effort to overturn our Government was done under color of law. The rebels insisted that they had a right to secede; they passed ordinances of secession, they set up State governments, and all that they did was under color of law. And if parties committing these high crimes ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... were located in the dockyard, and preparations were made, the next day, for heaving the frigate down. It was the opinion of everybody that, had not our skipper been the nephew of a very high official of the Admiralty, he would have been tried by a court-martial, for thus attempting to overturn submarine churches and cracking the bottom of his Majesty's beautiful frigate. As it was, we were only ordered to be repaired with all haste, and to go home, very much, indeed, to the satisfaction of everybody but ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... teaches us much. It makes the manhood of our Lord pathetically true, as showing Him bearing the prosaic but terrible pinch of hunger, carried almost to its fatal point. It teaches us how innocent and necessary wants may be the devil's levers to overturn our souls. It warns us against severing ourselves from our fellows by the use of distinctive powers for our own behoof. It sets forth humble reliance on God's sustaining will as best for us, even if we are in the desert, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... dignity took shelter under the shade of the tribunes?" Another time to his colleagues, "What do you intend doing, if I go on with the prosecution; will you wrest their jurisdiction from the people and overturn the tribunitian authority?" When they said that, "both with respect to Sempronius and all others, the power of the Roman people was supreme; that they had neither the will nor the power to do away with the judgment of the people; but if their entreaties ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... he were able to run away and then turn and strike at the one who first came up? And supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn more ...
— The Republic • Plato

... art, as the women of that island mostly are, she made sail and casting the oars and rudder adrift, committed herself altogether to the mercy of the waves, conceiving that it must needs happen that the wind would either overturn a boat without lading or steersman or drive it upon some rock and break it up, whereby she could not, even if she would, escape, but must of necessity be drowned. Accordingly, wrapping her head in a mantle, she laid herself, weeping, in ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... swift, nor the battle to the strong.' "'I will acknowledge,' said Lester, interrupting him, 'that you have the advantage of me in quoting Scripture—but depend upon it, the practical advantages of the British over the rebel army will soon overturn ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... to that which attempted to overturn the constitution in Lower Canada can work well, and even usefully reform when in the hands of loyal English subjects, is acknowledged by his lordship, who says, "the course of the Parliamentary contest in Upper Canada has not been marked by that singular neglect ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... cannot resist; and this of [1591]Philo Judeus, "Perturbations often offend the body, and are most frequent causes of melancholy, turning it out of the hinges of his health." Vives compares them to [1592]"Winds upon the sea, some only move as those great gales, but others turbulent quite overturn the ship." Those which are light, easy, and more seldom, to our thinking, do us little harm, and are therefore contemned of us: yet if they be reiterated, [1593]"as the rain" (saith Austin) "doth a stone, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... was. But how is it now? no wavering and deliberating what I shall do,—to lash the drowsy moments into speed. In my haste to set the table and its gear in order for scribble, I overturn the inkhorn, spill the ink, and ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... revolutionary movement had drawn its main strength, neither the bourgeoisie nor the class-conscious section of the industrial proletariat could set up its rule without angry protest and attacks which, soon or late, must overturn it. Every essential fact in the Russian situation, which was so unique, pointed to the need for a genuine and sincere co-operation by the intelligent leaders of all the opposition elements until stability was attained, together with freedom from the abnormal difficulties due ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... friends, or with too few, and those few too weak to make their friendship effectual. At such a time, and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for the last half century as been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... right and wrong. Sec. 203. May the commands then of a prince be opposed? may he be resisted as often as any one shall find himself aggrieved, and but imagine he has not right done him? This will unhinge and overturn all polities, and, instead of government and order, leave nothing but anarchy and confusion. Sec. 204. To this I answer, that force is to be opposed to nothing, but to unjust and unlawful force; whoever makes any opposition ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... their dislike of the lazy, pink-and-white creature whom they had often seen loitering on the streets or lying day after day in a hammock reading "domestic novels." The young girls drew together and conveyed the news in whispers. It seemed to overturn the whole social world so far as they knew it, and some of them hastened to disclaim any friendship ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... debt, with no power to raise money. New England refused to pay her poll-tax, and a party named Shays directed his hired man to overturn the government; but a felon broke out on his thumb, and before he could put it down the crisis was ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... all it is needful for me to tell," said Katherine, gravely. "Yes, Rachel, it is better to explain all to him. He is kind and wise, and I am strangely stupefied by this extraordinary overturn of my fortunes. I shall be glad of your help, but do not neglect your ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... they wish to overturn practically all existing institutions from the Monarchy downwards, and they fear that the military may defend ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... made a most wonderful Appeal, deep, strong. To him, it was the real James Whitcomb Riley! You were a Mystic, but never a Reformer. You cheerfully rendered unto Ceasar all things that were his just due. You had no desire to overturn Natural Law, Human Regulation. You accepted, without question, the Established Order of Things. But so strong was this touch of the Mystic that, it you had desired, you could have, quickly, thickly, populated some far ...
— A Spray of Kentucky Pine • George Douglass Sherley

... such of them as desire to maintain and perpetuate thrones and monarchical or aristocratical principles will view it with exultation and delight, because in it they will see the elements of faction, which they hope must ultimately overturn our system. Ours is the great example of a prosperous and free self-governed republic, commanding the admiration and the imitation of all the lovers of freedom throughout the world. How solemn, therefore, is the duty, how impressive ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... erected on its present site in 1676, with a dedication to the then reigning sovereign, Louis XIV; A globe, ornamented with fleurs de lis placed on its point, deteriorates, in my opinion, from the beauty of its effect. It was originally in one block, but it was broken in two by its overturn. ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... a parallel between Sylla and the President, or Dictator, as he styled him, of the States, by no means disadvantageous to the Roman; showing how the tyrant of old first excited the populace, by the basest flattery, to overturn the restrictive power of the senate; which done, and his lawless will being left without a check, he turned upon his restless, ignorant allies, and slaughtering them by thousands, succeeded in prostrating ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... be helped, my dear; society is changing; women are just as much victims to the present state of things as the nobility themselves. After political overturn comes the overturn of morals. Alas! before long woman won't exist" (he took out the cotton-wool to arrange his ears): "she'll lose everything by rushing into sentiment; she'll wring her nerves; good-bye to all ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... us all, Forgive our faith in cruel lies,— Forgive the blindness that denies! Forgive Thy creature when he takes, For the all-perfect love Thou art, Some grim creation of his heart. Cast down our idols, overturn Our bloody altars; let us see ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... "here's a sad job: there was a parcel lost last night, in the confusion of the overturn of the coach; and I must make it good; for it's booked, and it's booked to the value of five guineas, for it was a gold muslin gown that a lady was very particular about; and, master, I won't peach if you'll pay: but as for losing my place, or making up five guineas afore ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... rear attempted to address the crowd, but his voice was inaudible in the din of howls, catcalls, hooting and obscene curses. After about an hour of this, as the crowd began pushing against the van and trying to overturn it, the terrified horses commenced to get restive and uncontrollable, and the man on the box attempted to drive up the hill. This seemed to still further infuriate the horde of savages who surrounded the van. Numbers of them ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... Irish is only a branch, it necessarily follows that no exertion of any party here could ever lead to power, unless they overturned the English government in this country, or unless the efforts of such a party in the Irish House of Commons could overturn the British administration in England, and the leaders of it get into their places; —the first, you will allow, would not be a very wise object, and the latter you ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... it the fullest effect; it would never impose upon me: for the tact which nature and experience have given me, and the inconceivable acuteness of perception I derive from it, would immediately detect inconsistencies scarcely appreciable by others, and at once overturn and expose the deception which was ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... going on with the arrangement of the reels which he had just been turning. "I hardly think he means it. But where's the harm, if he likes it? Any one who objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don't put up the strongest fellow. They won't overturn the Constitution with our friend Brooke's head ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... in life: "I am glad of the grand overturn in Boston, and the courage of the women voters. How did it seem to elbow thy way to the polls through ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... served to unite but the common interest of sharing in the spoil and plunder of the people; the present dread of their adversaries, by whom they apprehended to be called to an account, and that general conspiracy, of endeavouring to overturn the Church and State; which, however, if they could have compassed, they would certainly have fallen out among themselves, and broke in pieces, as their predecessors did, after they destroyed the monarchy and religion. For, how could ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... clear From this my wine-jar, first embrown'd In Tullus' year. Come, crush one hundred cups for life Preserved, Maecenas; keep till day The candles lit; let noise and strife Be far away. Lay down that load of state-concern; The Dacian hosts are all o'erthrown; The Mede, that sought our overturn, Now seeks his own; A servant now, our ancient foe, The Spaniard, wears at last our chain; The Scythian half unbends his bow And quits the plain. Then fret not lest the state should ail; A private man such thoughts may spare; Enjoy ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... encouragements do not tend to turn towards any particular employment a greater share of the capital of the country, than what would go to that employment of its own accord, but only to hinder the duty from driving away any part of that share to other employments. They tend not to overturn that balance which naturally establishes itself among all the various employments of the society, but to hinder it from being overturned by the duty. They tend not to destroy, but to preserve, what it is in most cases advantageous to preserve, the natural division ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... whatever. It is a great source of wrath and of sorrow to him, that neither in the Writing-case, nor in Katte's or the Prince's so-called "Confessions," can the thing be seen into. A deeper bottom it must have, thinks his Majesty, but knows not what or where. To overturn the Country, belike; and fling the Kaiser, and European Balance of Power, bottom uppermost? Me they presumably meant to poison! he tells Seckendorf one day. [Dickens's Despatch, 16th September, 1730.] ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... the sum of Mr. Bonflon's revelations of the morning. What a discovery! How the announcement would astonish the world! How the practical fact would overturn the world, upset commerce, and transform the habits and relations of mankind! America, the pioneer in many valuable discoveries and reforms, was still ahead,—still destined to lead the van ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... representatives, is to meet on September 3. Parliament meets. Oliver's speech on September 3 is unreported, but we have that on September 4, and another eight days later. "You are met for healing and settling. We are troubled with those who would destroy liberty, and with those who would overturn all control. This government which has called you, a Free Parliament, together, has given you peace instead of the foreign wars that were going on; there remains plenty for you to do." But the Parliament, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... unearthly majesty in the person, the manner and the words of Jesus, that awed them into inaction. The very fact that such men were so unnerved by the presence and words of Jesus, gives us an idea of His majesty as a teacher, and of His power over men. Thus it was that He could cleanse the temple, overturn the tables of the money-changers, drive out the whole crew who were making merchandise of the house of God, and no one resisted. When did the world produce another man whose presence alone awed bold officers of the law into disregard of duty, and the ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... this sessions presented, for an Act to overturn the whole pauper system (for our heads are as fond of new fashions, in parochial government, as in the hats which cover them) to erect a superb workhouse, at the expence of 10,000l. with powers to borrow 15,000l. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... something to retard its fame. But the time is coming when none will dispute its right to a place of exceptional honour among records of travel—alongside the very few which, during the two or three decades preceding the general overturn, had been added to the books of the great wayfaring companions. It is remarkably unlike all others, in its union of accurate chronicle with intimate self-revelation; and, although it is the sustained expression of a mood, it is extremely quotable. I choose as a single ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... that I thought we must have run on a rock, and immediately afterwards a huge head appeared above the water and dashed towards us. The hippopotamus, for such it was, and a very large one, seized the boat by the gunwale, and threatened to overturn her. At the same moment several other monsters rose with their snouts above the water. I felt that we should have a poor chance of escaping if the canoe was upset, for I thought that the monsters would immediately make at us and tear us to pieces, or swallow ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... thought that my brothers had fallen through?" The journey to the clearing, which across the ice would not have occupied twenty minutes, and not an hour by land had the snow been hard, took up more than two hours, with the risk of an overturn or break-down every yard, and such jolting as only ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston

... story, I learned from Antoine, that he remained in your lodgings several days, until the mackaw he sold to you became sufficiently accustomed to you to be caressed without biting. During that time you had a room darkened, and required him to train the bird to fly at a light and overturn it. When he was dismissed, his curiosity was excited, and he watched your movements. He nightly dogged your steps, and traced you to the garden of the villa. He stood within a few feet of you on the night of Euston's death, and beheld the use to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... prize away before he has grasped it, he too learns to snatch, with a sudden clumsy movement that overturns, or breaks, or spills. If left to himself he will soon acquire the dexterity he desires. He may overturn objects at first, or let them fall, but this he regards as failure, which he soon overcomes. A child of twenty months, whose development in this particular way has not been impeded by unwise repression, will pick out the object on which he has set his heart, play with it, finger ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... while the King was in the height of his oppressing power, the People only whispered in private chambers against him; but afterwards it was preached upon the house-tops, that he was a Tyrant, a Traitor to England's Peace: and he had his overturn. ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... the poll-books. This company of peaceful emigrants, moving with their household goods, was distorted into an invading horde of pauper Abolitionists, who were, with others of a similar character, to control the domestic institutions of the territory, and then overturn those of a ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... you see over yonder are throwing horseshoes over a peg—with mighty poor skill, too. Here come Patton McRae and Susy. Excuse me. I'll help him with his horses," for Patton's black mare hated the harness even more than she did the saddle, and was doing her best to demoralize her mate and overturn ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... slanting; the Mole touches the ground, but at a point two inches from the base of the gibbet. The Burying-beetles begin by digging to no purpose under the body. They make no attempt to overturn the stake. In this experiment they obtain the Mole at last by employing the usual method, that is by ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn, And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn Could tread them out to darkness utterly, It might be well perhaps. But if instead Thou wait beside me for the wind to ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... to shed blood, which the Saxon customs gave rise to, the Christian religion confirmed. Yet was it not altogether so imperfect as to have no punishment adequate to those great delinquencies which tend entirely to overturn a state, public robbery, murder ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... reinforcement on a field of battle. Those who stood for freedom then were few in numbers—not more than fourteen—while thirty- seven Senators in solid column voted to break the faith originally plighted to freedom, and to overturn a time-honored landmark, opening that vast Mesopotamian region to the curse of slavery. Those anxious days are with difficulty comprehended by a Senate where freedom rules. One more in our small ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... State, by its individual act, might overturn the entire system adopted for the convenience and ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... be wider than any other, and the currents are fierce. Besides, some of the natives declare there are mermaids, or something after that order, that try to overturn ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... and a native government set up under Count de la Conquista. By this government the sovereignty of Spain was still recognised, although various reforms were adopted which Spain could not be expected to endorse. Accordingly, in April, 1811, an attempt was made by the Spanish soldiers to overturn the new order of things. The result was that, after brief fighting, the revolutionists triumphed, and the yoke of Spain was ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... on a bit of the nation's history in which within a few days of the national election of 1896 a hurry-up call for additional funds to the extent of $5,000,000 was so promptly met as to overturn the people in five States and thereby preserve the destinies of the Republican party, of which I am and have ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... in the secret councils of the Great Ones and handed down to us to adopt. Of course, it is open to any man to criticise, and I am bound to say that the rankers exercise that privilege with considerable zest. All the same, however, it is difficult to overturn an administration, hard to upset established order. The thing that is, is the thing that ought to be. Rejection of an administration policy ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... as long as he respected English institutions, things went very well with him, and he made no attempt to overturn them. The fear that a sovereign who was nominally absolute in one place could never govern under a constitution in another proved to be unnecessary. His interests, and those of his continental advisers, were mainly continental. In political science he had long had the ablest counsellor ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... you to consider yourself so duty-bound in that direction that you overturn discipline, disregard my commands, and ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... though I am a tamed Redgauntlet, yet I have still so much of our family spirit as enables me to be as composed in danger as most of my sex; and upon two occasions in the course of our journey—a threatened attack by banditti, and the overturn of our carriage—I had the fortune so to conduct myself, as to convey to my uncle a very favourable idea of my intrepidity. Probably this encouraged him to put in execution the singular scheme ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... clergy, and in 1798 one of them, one G. W. Snyder, of Fredericktown, Maryland, wrote to Washington sending at the same time a book entitled 'Proofs of a Conspiracy,' etc., by John Robison,[65] the conspiracy being 'to overturn all government ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse

... he writes to the department of war as follows: "The implicit confidence and respect which the followers of Tecumseh pay to him is really astonishing, and more than any other circumstance bespeaks him one of those uncommon geniuses, which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions and overturn the established order of things. If it were not for the vicinity of the United States, he would perhaps be the founder of an empire that would rival in glory that of Mexico or Peru. No difficulties deter him. His activity and industry supply the want of letters. For four ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... 1715, the 11th of March 1719, and the 3rd of August 1733? Or will he affirm, because he has entirely forgot the incidents of these days, that the present self is not the same person with the self of that time; and by that means overturn all the most established notions of personal identity? In this view, therefore, memory does not so much produce as discover personal identity, by shewing us the relation of cause and effect among ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume



Words linked to "Overturn" :   success, inversion, alter, strike down, force out, cancel, rule, turn, modify, upend, renege on, renege, go back on, capsize, turtle, change, renegue on, move, depose, turn turtle, displace, decree, upending



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