Fromover- +awe.
overawe (third-person singular simple presentoverawes,present participleoverawing,simple past and past participleoverawed)
- (transitive) Torestrain,subdue, orcontrol byawe; tocow.[from 16th c.]
1591 (date written),William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, inMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London:[…]Isaac Iaggard, andEd[ward] Blount, published1623,→OCLC,(please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):None doe you like, but an effeminate Prince, Whom like a Schoole-boy you mayouer-awe.
1849,Herman Melville, “ch. 57”, inMardi: and A Voyage Thither, volume I:His free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my assumptions, he was no wayoverawed by them; treating me as familiarly, indeed, as if I were a mere mortal, one of the abject generation of mushrooms.
2000,Alasdair Gray,The Book of Prefaces, Bloomsbury, published2002, page61:He kept the biggest estates, and where he lacked troops tooverawe the natives he evicted the natives and made a game reserve.
to restrain, subdue, or control by awe; to cow
