1593 Tell-Trothes New-yeares Gift (1876) 37 They say that overawing makes fooles.

1649 J. Lilburne Second Part Englands New Chains in Leveller Tracts (1944) 183 The overawing the House, and reducing it to that passe, that it is become but the Chonnell, through which is conveyed all the Decrees and Determinations of a private Counsell.

1852 Southern Q. Rev. July 207 He (Lincoln) penetrated the interior of Georgia for very different objects—..the encouragement of the whigs of the interior, and the overawing of the loyalists.

1856 C. Dickens Little Dorrit (1857) i. xx. 170 When this spirited young man, and his sister, had begun systematically to produce the family skeleton for the overawing of the College, this narrative cannot precisely state.

1887 Mind 12 480 The Reviewer has neglected no device for the overawing of his readers.

1937 W. I. Hull William Penn 103 Penn's own personal interests had but scant attention in the midst of the old familiar ‘circuit-riding,’ preaching,..and the overawing of would-be disturbers of Quaker meetings.

1961 H. M. Ward United Colonies New Eng. xii. 261 The advantages of union were demonstrated negatively by weaknesses of the Confederation after 1655–witness..the overawing of the colonies by the demands of the royal government to recognize the sovereignty of the king.

1625 R. Montagu Appello Cæsarem ii. ii. 125 Councils have no such over-awing power.

1648 J. Quarles Disc. between Soul & Faith in Fons Lachrymarum 106 What over-awing rod Smarts like the silence of an angry God!

1675 C. Cotton Judgment of Paris in Burlesque upon Burlesque 155 There lies the over-awing Crest.

1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison I. 299 None but rakes hold these over-awing doctrines.

1823 M. W. Shelley Valperga III. viii. 173 When his once over-awing sceptre shall have fallen from his nerveless grasp.

1854 R. Montgomery Poet. Wks. 236/2 Thus, beneath the overawing heavens Man sinks to nothing.

1899 J. Stalker Christol. of Jesus ii. 83 (note) The effect is overawing in a high degree.

1985 Washington Post (Nexis) 23 June b6 A complicated story of Nordic gods, heroes, dwarfs, dragons and flying horsewomen... Although not to everyone's taste, it is an overawing spectacle.

2002 Jrnl. Southeast Asian Stud. (Nexis) 33 31 It was in view of this overawing size..that some European observers described the vessels as ‘floating cities’.