overwhelms

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of overwhelm.

   The rising river overwhelms the levee whenever the spring melt comes early.

   Her quiet confidence overwhelms opponents who expected an easier match.

   Note

   The verb form that agrees with a single subject in the present: a flood or a feeling that overwhelms someone. It carries every meaning of the verb, from water that engulfs and submerges to emotion that overpowers, and it takes an object, because something is always overwhelmed. Plural subjects take bare overwhelm. The same spelling also serves as the plural noun, so the sentence around it, not the word itself, tells you which is meant.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of overwhelm. Rare, since the noun is usually uncountable.

   The therapist asked him to log his daily overwhelms and rate each one.

   Back-to-back overwhelms during the launch month burned through the team's energy.

   Note

   Only the countable side of the noun has a plural: overwhelm as a single episode rather than a lasting state. Used as a mass noun, as in a feeling of overwhelm, it stays singular. Once the moments are counted, logged or compared, they become overwhelms. The spelling is shared with the present-tense verb, but a determiner or a number in front of it marks the noun.

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