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Obsessed vs Overwhelmed - What's the difference?

obsessed | overwhelmed |

As verbs the difference between obsessed and overwhelmed

is that obsessed is (obsess) while overwhelmed is (overwhelm).

As an adjective obsessed

is intensely preoccupied (with) or (by) a given topic or emotion; driven by a specified obsession.

obsessed

English

Verb

(head)
  • (obsess)
  • Influenced or controlled by evil spirits, but less than possessed in that the spirits do not actually reside in the victim.
  • *E. W. Sprague, 1915 , Spirit Obsession Or a False Doctrine & A Menace to Modern Spiritualism , page 86, ISBN 0766140725.
  • *:Believing that an evil spirit is trying to obsess' one is a dangerous belief, and when one comes to believe he is ' obsessed by an evil spirit, though there is not an evil spirit within a thousand miles of him, he will have all the symptoms.
  • *2007 , James E. Padgett, The Teachings of Jesus , page 100, ISBN 1430303913.
  • *:It is true, that by the workings of the law of attraction, and the susceptibility of mortals to the influence of spirit powers, mortals may become obsessed by the spirits of evil...
  • *2010 , Joseph Agbi, Living in God's Kingdom , page 71, ISBN 1612154107.
  • *:What of demon possession, whereby a person is not only obsessed or oppressed by evil spirits, but these spirits actually reside in such a person?
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Intensely preoccupied (with) or (by) a given topic or emotion; driven by a specified obsession.
  • * 1997 , Philip Roth, American Pastoral :
  • What was starting to unsettle him, to frighten him, was the idea that Merry was less horrified now than curious, and soon he himself became obsessed , though not, like her, by the self-immolators in Vietnam but by the change of demeanor of his eleven-year-old.
  • * 1999 , Mark Lawson, The Guardian , 28 Jun 1999:
  • Strangely, although it is an international cliché that the British are obsessed with the weather, it is a fixation with minor irritations: will rain spoil the wedding, the Test Match, the bank holiday?
  • * 2007 , Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day :
  • Everyone lay around in a sort of focused inertia, drinking, handing cigarettes back and forth, forgetting with whom, or whether, they were supposed to be romantically obsessed .

    overwhelmed

    English

    Verb

    (head)
  • (overwhelm)

  • overwhelm

    English

    Verb

  • To engulf, surge over and submerge.
  • The dinghy was overwhelmed by the great wave.
  • To overpower, crush.
  • In December 1939 the Soviet Union attacked Finland with overwhelming force.
  • * Bible, Psalms lxxviii. 53
  • The sea overwhelmed their enemies.
  • To overpower emotionally.
  • He was overwhelmed with guilt.
    Joy overwhelmed her when she realized that she had won a million dollars.
  • To cause to surround, to cover.
  • (Papin)

    Derived terms

    * overwhelming

    See also

    * too many balls in the air