overbear

present singular third person overbears · participle present overbearing · past overbore · participle past overborne

1. obsoletetransitiveTo carry over.First known use 10th–14th c.
2. transitiveTo push through by physical weight or strength; to overwhelm, overcome.First known use 16th c.

   I attacked first and they were overborne, / Glad to apologize and even suing / Pardon for what they'd never thought of doing.

   1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 287

3. transitiveTo prevail over; to dominate, overpower; to oppress.First known use 16th c.

   It often fals, in course of common life, / That right long time is overborne of wrong […].

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

4. intransitiveTo produce an overabundance of fruit.First known use 18th c.