Overcome

How to spell overcome

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce overcome

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does overcome mean?

1. verbTo succeed in dealing with or defeating a problem, difficulty, or opponent.
2. verbTo affect someone so strongly, by emotion or physical force, that they are left helpless.

Overcome in a sentence

• With months of practice she managed to overcome her fear of public speaking.

• The heat and crowds began to overcome several visitors at the festival.

• The team worked late to overcome the technical problems before the launch.

• Reading the old letters seemed to overcome her with grief.

Where does overcome come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, recorded in Old English as 'ofercuman', formed from 'ofer' meaning 'over' or 'beyond' and 'cuman', the ancestor of the modern verb 'come'. The literal sense was to 'come over' something, that is, to get on top of an obstacle or an opponent and prevail against it. From those early Anglo-Saxon roots it kept the idea of mastering or defeating, whether a foe in battle or a difficulty in life. By extension it came to describe being physically or emotionally swamped, as when a person is 'overcome' by smoke or by grief, the force having quite literally come over them. Because both halves are plain Germanic words still used on their own today, the spelling is regular, and the only real trap is remembering it is a single solid word rather than two.

How the word is built

• over- (above, beyond)
• come (to move, from Old English cuman)