overshadow

present singular third person overshadows · participle present overshadowing · participle past overshadowed · past overshadowed

1. transitiveTo obscure something by casting a shadow.

   While he thus ſpake, there came a cloud, and ouerſhadowed them, ⁊ they feared, as they entred into the cloude.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 9:34

   1 more example

   Even in the narrowest places the river bank is overshadowed by spreading plane-trees, which stretch their roots and dip their pendent boughs into the stream, their dense foliage forming so thick a screen as almost to shut out the sun.

   1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page 173

2. transitiveTo dominate something and make it seem insignificant.

   President Obama gave an important press conference today and even took questions from the press, but all of this was overshadowed by the fact that Obama debuted one of the ugliest suits in the history of this great nation.

   2014 August 28, Arit John, “No One Heard Anything Obama Just Said Because His Tan Suit Was So Loud”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 30 Nov 2025

   4 more examples

   A branch of rail transport that seems to been rather neglected by historians is that concerned with cliff railways, of which a fair number exist in Great Britain. This is probably because these lines are overshadowed by the more spectacular funicular railways in Switzerland and other mountainous regions; perhaps, too, because of the general habit of referring to them as "cliff lifts," which tends to associate them with the vertical indoor type.

   1951 August, P. W. Gentry, “Cliff Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 514

   This is itself a cheerless spot, particularly on a rainy day, when, overshadowed by the great massif of rock that towers in the background, and surrounded by the grey and cheerless quarries, it has a depressing character much in contrast with the green verdure encountered on the northern end of this interesting branch line.

   1954 August, H. M. Madgwick, “The Blaenau Festiniog Tunnel”, in Railway Magazine, page 569

   Only a handful of rock musicians have become genuine icons - larger-than-life symbolic figures whose personal triumphs and vicissitudes seem to mirror the ups and downs of rock as a whole, and sometimes of the society that nurtures it. Often, rock icons become the objects of personality cults that tend to overshadow their musical accomplishments.

   1981 May 31, Robert Palmer, “Two Icons of Rock Music”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 18 Apr 2023

   It’s surely consequential that Jon has a claim to the throne, whether he knows about it or not, but all of that is overshadowed by his immediate circumstances, which are that Jon Snow is leading a raiding party beyond the Wall to kidnap a wight.

   2017 August 13, Brandon Nowalk, “Oldtown offers one last game-changing secret as Game Of Thrones goes behind enemy lines (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 22 Aug 2017

   Synonyms: eclipse, outshadow, outshine, outdo, put to shame, upstage, surpass, outmatch

3. transitiveTo shelter or protect.