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Puissant vs Overpowering - What's the difference?

puissant | overpowering | Related terms |

As adjectives the difference between puissant and overpowering

is that puissant is powerful, mighty, having authority while overpowering is that overpowers; so strong as to be overwhelming.

As a verb overpowering is

present participle of lang=en.

puissant

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Powerful, mighty, having authority.
  • * 1599 — Shakespeare, Hen V i 2
    • Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, / And with your puissant arm renew their feats.
  • * 1667 — Book I
    • For who can yet believe, though after loss,
    That all these puissant legions, whose exile
    Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend,
    Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?
  • *
    • I cried in a loud voice, "Long live the most puissant king of Lilliput!"
  • * 1851 ,
    • How comes all this, if there be not something puissant in whaling?
  • * 1961 -
    • In fact the titles could be anything-or (with some of the most puissant ) no title at all...

    Related terms

    * puissance

    Anagrams

    * ----

    overpowering

    English

    Verb

    (head)

    • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • That overpowers; so strong as to be overwhelming.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
    • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}