Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of overseer.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Indeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so-called overseers of the poor and selectmen of the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned.

    Walden 2004

  • For as ministers are called overseers, rulers, guides, pastors, and the like, so are they commanded to feed the flock, to take the oversight of it, and to rule the house of God,

    A Discourse concerning Evangelical Love, Church Peace, and Unity 1616-1683 1965

  • ” He called the overseers, and the work was decided on without contradiction, something that had never happened before.

    Paras. 600–699 1917

  • But the masters or their overseers were the only persons who were allowed to whip a slave, and no master would permit any one else to strike one, or mistreat him, unless the slave was acting very badly.

    Last of the Pioneers, Or Old Times in East Tenn.; Being the Life and Reminiscences of Pharaoh Jackson Chesney (Aged 120 Years). John Coram 1902

  • He furnished that class justly described by a Virginian of that day as "a foeculum of beings called overseers, a most abject, unprincipled race."

    Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 Various 1885

  • Indeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so-called overseers of the poor and selectmen of the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned.

    Walden~ Chapter 06 (historical) 1854

  • Indeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so called overseers of the poor and selectmen of the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned.

    Walden, or Life in the woods 1854

  • Virginian: Mr. Wirt, in his "Life of Patrick Henry," speaking of the different classes in Virginia, says: "Last and lowest, a _feculum_ of beings called overseers -- the _most abject_, _degraded_, _unprincipled_ race -- always cap in hand to the Dons who employed them, and furnishing materials for the exercise of their pride, insolence, and spirit of domination."

    An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans Lydia Maria Francis Child 1841

  • William Ladd, Esq. of Minot, Maine, formerly a slaveholder in Florida, speaking, in a recent letter of the system of labor adopted there, says; "The compensation of the overseers was a certain portion of the crop."

    American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses 1839

  • Indeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so-called overseers of the poor and selectmen of the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned.

    Walden Henry David Thoreau 1839

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