Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of overthrowing something or someone.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From overthrow + -al.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word overthrowal.

Examples

  • Responsible government within their own Colony would lead to the "overthrowal" of that Empire, and the reduction of Britain to a "second-rate Power."

    The Framework of Home Rule Erskine Childers 1896

  • And not so much an overthrowal as an infiltration and reform.

    At play in the field of tea parties - Erick’s blog - RedState 2009

  • What there was most distressing to him was the overthrowal of the Church, and he did not hesitate, in very striking fashion, to connect revolutionary opinion with infidelity.

    Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham Harold Joseph Laski 1921

  • The end of Freemasonry is, in fact, social anarchy, the overthrowal of monarchical government, and the destruction of the Catholic religion.

    Devil-Worship in France or The Question of Lucifer Arthur Edward Waite 1899

  • Pilgrims of Grace, 326; their demands and overthrowal, 327.

    A Short History of Monks and Monasteries Alfred Wesley Wishart 1899

  • Until the peasant class was driven to the last pitch of desperation, their leaders did not conceive, and, indeed, never wholly succeeded in implanting, the idea of a complete overthrowal of landlordism.

    The Framework of Home Rule Erskine Childers 1896

  • That gives us some idea of the old Irish land system, whose overthrowal began only in 1870; a system under which the landlord put no capital into the land, though his rent represented the full profits of the tenant's capital and labour, less an amount equivalent to a bare subsistence wage, governed by competition.

    The Framework of Home Rule Erskine Childers 1896

  • He belonged to the party who aimed at the overthrowal of the royal power.

    The Son of Monte-Cristo Jules Lermina 1877

  • After all, he yielded, because he thought Mr. Audley had a certain right over Geraldine, and that it was proper to defer to his judgment; while his guardian trusted to a sight of St. Matthew's for the overthrowal of the prejudices that

    The Pillars of the House, V1 Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862

  • It was not a great calamity only but an overthrowal of all confidence in life; and she shivered before it like a dumb creature piteously beholding an approaching agony which it could not comprehend.

    The Perpetual Curate 1862

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.