Word.ws English Dictionary

overpowered

overpowered is the simple past and past participle of overpower.

Meaning of overpower

Verb

overpower (third-person singular simple present overpowers, present participle overpowering, simple past and past participle overpowered)

  1. (transitive) To subdue someone by superior force.
    • We overpowered the opposing army within a couple of hours.
  2. (transitive) To excel or exceed in power; to cause to yield; to subdue.
    • Bright light overpowers the eyes.
    Synonyms:
    overbear
  3. (transitive) To render imperceptible by means of greater strength, intensity, etc.
    • The dish was OK, but the garlic slightly overpowered the herbs.
  4. (transitive) To make excessively powerful.
    • Rather than overpowering the characters or giving them some kind of slow-mo adrenalin abilities, Bloody Days does the most unexpected thing: it introduces a genuinely smart tactical system.2017 March 10, Adam Smith, “Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is smarter than you’d think”, in Rock Paper Shotgun, archived from the original on 23 Jan 2022
    Antonyms:
    nerf

Adjective (1)

overpowered (comparative more overpowered, superlative most overpowered)

  1. Subdued by superior force.
    • Rippling back abashed before the ominous silences / Like the swift turns and starts of an overpowered fencer / Who sees before him Horror / Behind him darkness, / Shadow.1918 September, Stephen Vincent Benét, “The White Peacock. (France—Ancient Régime.)”, in Young Adventure: A Book of Poems, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford...
    • It is true that during two world wars the belligerents violated many rules of warfare which had been generally accepted in some earlier periods of history, but the fundamental purpose remained unchanged—to impose the victor’s will on an overpowered enemy.1961, Stephen D[enis] Kertesz, “A New Era”, in Stephen D. Kertesz, editor, American Diplomacy in a New Era (International Studies of the Committee on International Relations, University of Notre...

Adjective (2)

overpowered (comparative more overpowered, superlative most overpowered)

  1. Overly powerful.
    • The engine seemed overpowered for such a small car.
    • Players complained that some of the characters in the game were overpowered and hard to defeat.
    Synonyms:
    OP, overpowerful
    Antonyms:
    underpowered

Synonyms of overpowered

Antonyms

Forms of overpowered

comparativemore overpowered
superlativemost overpowered

Origin of overpowered

From overpower + -ed.

From over- + powered.

Words formed from overpowered

Questions about overpowered

What does overpowered mean?
Overpowered means subdued by superior force.
What is overpowered the simple past and past participle of?
Overpowered is the simple past and past participle of overpower.
What part of speech is overpowered?
Overpowered is an adjective.

Words near overpowered in the dictionary

  1. overpowdered
  2. overpowdering
  3. overpowders
  4. overpower
  5. overpowerable
  6. overpowered
  7. overpoweredly
  8. overpoweredness
  9. overpowerer
  10. overpowerers
  11. overpowerest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overpowered (page history and authors); overpower (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-overpowered.ogg.

Cite this entry: “overpowered.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overpowered. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.