Thinkin 'bout da wierdest 'tings...

[chatrient]

No wonder so many peoples cannot speak English properly
It is a confusing language....

Take for instance the word "Overwhelm". As in: to overcome completely in mind or feeling." You can be overwhelmed, something can be overwhelming

Comments

Not prexactly

[wulfthorson]

Perhaps you need a more whelmful dictionary.

According to The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (two volumes, each over 4000 pages, with a magnifying glass in a little drawer), in brief:

whelm (n)
1. A wooden drain pipe: orig. a tree-trunk halved vertically, hollowed, and 'whelmed down' or turned with the concavity downward to form an arched watercourse.
2. The overwhelming surge of waters.
whelm (v)
1. To overturn, capsize.
2. To turn (a hollow vessel) upside down or over or upon something so as to cover it.
3. To come or pass over something so as to cover it.
4a. To cover completely with water other fluid so as to ruin or destroy; to submerge, drown; occas. to sink (a boat).
b. To bury under a load of earth, snow, or the like.
5. To engulf or bear down like a flood, storm, avalanche, etc; hence to involve in destruction or ruin.

venge (v)
1. Avenge.
2b. To punish (wrongdoing).
4. To execute (vengeance); to wreak (anger) by vengeance.

Sadly, Wulf knows three other words for thesaurus...