overwhelm
Americanverb (used with object)
-
overwhelms,
present (3rd person singular)
-
overwhelmed,
past participle, past
-
overwhelming
present participle
-
to overcome completely in mind or feeling.
overwhelmed by remorse.
-
to overpower or overcome, especially with superior forces; destroy; crush.
Roman troops were overwhelmed by barbarians.
-
to cover or bury beneath a mass of something, as floodwaters, debris, or an avalanche; submerge.
Lava from erupting Vesuvius overwhelmed the city of Pompeii.
-
to load, heap, treat, or address with an overpowering or excessive amount of anything.
a child overwhelmed with presents; to overwhelm someone with questions.
-
to overthrow.
verb
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to overpower the thoughts, emotions, or senses of
-
to overcome with irresistible force
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to overcome, as with a profusion or concentration of something
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to cover over or bury completely
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to weigh or rest upon overpoweringly
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archaic to overturn
Usage
What’s the difference between overwhelm and underwhelm? The over- in overwhelm means “too much” and the under- in underwhelm essentially means “too little,” and the two words can be direct opposites, but they’re usually used in different contexts. Overwhelm most commonly means to cause to be overcome with emotion as a result of an amount of something (work, stress, etc.) that’s just too much to handle. (It can also mean to overpower or physically cover beneath a mass of something). Underwhelm means to fail to impress, especially when that is the expectation. Both words are often used in adjective forms: overwhelmed (overcome to the point of not being able to manage), overwhelming (describing something that leads to feeling overwhelmed), underwhelmed (unimpressed or disappointed), and underwhelming (unimpressive or disappointing). Being overwhelmed isn’t always about stress or other negative emotions. You could be overwhelmed by a friend’s generosity or the birth of a child. Still, it’s usually about feeling a lot. In this way, underwhelm can be the opposite of overwhelm in some situations. For example, the same concert may overwhelm one person (perhaps it’s the first concert they’ve ever attended) but underwhelm someone else (maybe because it doesn’t meet their high expectations). And, yes, whelm is a word. It can mean the same thing as overwhelm, but it’s very rarely used. Here’s an example of overwhelm and underwhelm used correctly in the same sentence. Example: I never want to underwhelm the fans, and sometimes that pressure can overwhelm me, but it all goes away when I walk on stage. Want to learn more? Read the full breakdown of the difference between overwhelm and underwhelm.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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overwhelmsimple
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overwhelmssimple
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have overwhelmedperfect
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has overwhelmedperfect
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am overwhelmingprogressive
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are overwhelmingprogressive
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is overwhelmingprogressive
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have been overwhelmingperfect progressive
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has been overwhelmingperfect progressive
Past
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overwhelmedsimple
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had overwhelmedperfect
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was overwhelmingprogressive
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were overwhelmingprogressive
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had been overwhelmingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of overwhelm
A Middle English word dating back to 1300–50; see origin at over-, whelm
Explanation
Overwhelm means “give a person too much of something.” If your friend agrees to feed your pet fish while you’re on vacation, don’t overwhelm her with requests by also asking her to do your laundry and wash the dishes. While it’s easy to be overwhelmed by chores or complaints, it’s also possible to be overwhelmed by good things — if they occur in large quantities. You might enjoy a stack of pancakes for breakfast, but you'd probably find a truckload of pancakes overwhelming. Sometimes people feel overwhelmed by emotion, and this can be a positive or negative experience, depending on the emotion. For example, you might feel overwhelmed by gratitude if your friend takes excellent care of your fish, but overwhelmed with grief if the fish is accidentally flushed in your absence.
Vocabulary lists containing overwhelm
The Diary of Anne Frank
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Anti-Antonyms: Words Without Opposites
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List 7
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As a result, the complaint says, instead of snow in the winter, Boulder gets more “high-intensity, short-duration rainfall events” that overwhelm its drainage systems and cause flooding.
From Slate ● Oct. 5, 2026
He said heavy rain could overwhelm drainage systems and penetrate walls, causing damp and erosion, while repeated cycles of wetting, drying, freezing and thawing could harm stonework.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026
Storms can overwhelm the aging facility, which suffered an equipment breakdown in 2021 that led to 17 million gallons of raw sewage gushing into the Santa Monica Bay.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
The swarm tactics, also referred to as salvo, saturation or precision-mass attacks, can overwhelm an opponent that has sophisticated defense systems, said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
Mariam remembered how the girl’s mere presence used to overwhelm him.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
Global bond yields will keep climbing, Dalio predicts, as the supply of government debt overwhelms demand.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
Even here in the relative safety of Annapolis, Maryland, an advancing armada of amped-up college kids overwhelms me.
From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2026
Ferroptosis occurs when iron-driven damage to cell membranes overwhelms a cell's antioxidant defenses.
From Science Daily ● May 15, 2026
Rates may rise even in recession this time, because the supply of Treasury debt overwhelms demand at current yields.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 9, 2026
Sometimes there are moments when we objectively face the never, and it overwhelms us.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
This year, they were utterly overwhelmed by the small-market Rays, a team with a budget a third of the size.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
Forty minutes into a journey and she's feeling "overwhelmed" by nausea - and can't stop herself throwing up on the ground next to his car.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
Nepal was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of destruction from the tsunami-like wall of freezing water and debris triggered by a glacial and rock collapse on the Nepal-China border on August 26.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
Often high school graduates with learning needs can “feel too intimidated and overwhelmed to apply for college” and others, including adults, “may be unaware that community college is even an option.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
But she seemed too overwhelmed to know what to do, which was a good thing for us.
From "Willodeen" by Katherine Applegate
The 2021 spill was related to poor maintenance, not an overwhelming amount of rain, said Mark Gold, director of the California Ocean Ecosystem Monitoring Program at UCLA.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
Yet the overwhelming share of the conduct at issue lies beyond not only Colorado’s borders but America’s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
The costumers have done a great job of supporting the characters; the soundtrack music, by Oli Julian, is unusual enough to notice without overwhelming the action.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Chandler, whose son Benjamin was a mascot at all three finals, said it was an overwhelming experience at times for the players too.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
I don’t want to tell you, then not be able to do it, and then suffer the inevitable overwhelming embarrassment.
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
