To overthrow means to remove leaders or a government from power by force, usually suddenly and often violently. When rebels overthrow a dictator, they're not voting them out or waiting for an election. They're using force to knock them out of power completely.

Picture toppling a statue: it goes from standing upright to lying on the ground. That's the image behind overthrowing a government. The old system gets knocked down, and something new takes its place.

History is full of overthrows. The American colonists overthrew British rule in the Revolutionary War. The French people overthrew their monarchy in 1789. Sometimes an overthrow brings freedom and better government. Other times it just replaces one bad ruler with another, or leads to chaos and instability.

In sports, overthrow means something different: throwing a ball too far or too hard, like when a shortstop overthrows the ball past the first baseman. But when you hear about political overthrow, it's always about power changing hands by force rather than by peaceful, legal means.

The word can also be used as a noun: “The general led the overthrow of the government.”