Word.ws English Dictionary

overwhelmed

Syllables: over·whelmedUK/ˌəʊvəˈwɛlmd//ˌoʊvɚˈwɛlmd/

overwhelmed adjective: emotionally overpowered. Also the simple past and past participle of overwhelm.

Adjective

overwhelmed (comparative more overwhelmed, superlative most overwhelmed)

  1. Emotionally overpowered.
    • completely overwhelmed
    • emotionally overwhelmed
    1. (often) Carrying a metaphorical burden greater than one can comfortably handle.
      • He felt overwhelmed by the workload.

Also used as

overwhelmed is also the simple past and past participle of overwhelm.

Examples of overwhelmed in a sentence

  • Joy overwhelmed her when she realized that she had won a million dollars.
  • When they saw the poor orphans, they were overwhelmed with tenderness for them.
  • Totally overwhelmed by now, I started to hand out the fliers willy-nilly.

All 40 example sentences with overwhelmed

Forms of overwhelmed

comparativemore overwhelmed
superlativemost overwhelmed

Origin of overwhelmed

From overwhelm + -ed.

Words formed from overwhelmed

Questions about overwhelmed

What does overwhelmed mean?
Overwhelmed means emotionally overpowered.
What part of speech is overwhelmed?
Overwhelmed is an adjective.
How do you pronounce overwhelmed?
Overwhelmed is pronounced /ˌəʊvəˈwɛlmd/ (UK).

Words near overwhelmed in the dictionary

  1. overwetted
  2. overwetting
  3. overwhaling
  4. overwhelm
  5. overwhelmable
  6. overwhelmed
  7. overwhelmedness
  8. overwhelmer
  9. overwhelmers
  10. overwhelming
  11. overwhelmingly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overwhelmed (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-overwhelmed.ogg.

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