# overswell
## English
### Alternative forms

* o’erswell
* over-swell

### Etymology

From over- +‎ swell.

### Pronunciation

* Verb senses:
** (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /əʊvəˈswɛl/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
** (General American) IPA: /ˌoʊvɚˈswɛl/
** Rhymes: -ɛl
* Noun senses:
** (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈəʊvəswɛl/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
** (General American) IPA: /ˈoʊvɚˌswɛl/

### Verb

overswell (third-person singular simple present overswells, present participle overswelling, simple past and past participle overswelled)
* (transitive, intransitive) To swell or rise above (something, especially the rim of a container, the sides of something hollow, etc.).
    Synonyms: overflow, spill over
    In some years the river overswells its banks, causing widespread flooding.
** 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:Let floods o’erswell, and fiends for food howl on!
** 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:Fill, Lucius, till the wine o’erswell the cup;
** 1636, Thomas Heywood, Loves Maistresse‎, London: John Crowch, act I, scene 1:Come, you have made mee resolute and bould, And now receive your lapps ore-swell’d with gold.
** 1768, Ignatius Sancho, letter to Mr. M—, in Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, London: J. Nichols, 3rd edition, 1784, p. 13,
    […] the heart gratefully throbbing—overswelled with thankful sensations—
** 1835, John Clare, “Decay”, in The Rural Muse‎, London: Whittaker, page 60:When mushrooms they were fairy bowers, Their marble pillars over-swelling,
** 1942, G. L. Steer, chapter 2, in Sealed and Delivered,‎, London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 14:[…] then Badoglio and his staff [went by] looking rather big for their cars, like the necks of bookmakers overswelling their collars;
* (transitive, intransitive) To cause (something) to be too swollen or large; to become too swollen or large.
** 1729, Jonathan Swift, “Maxims Controlled in Ireland”, in The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift‎, volume 15, London: W. Johnston, published 1765, page 243:[…] the rents of lands still grew higher upon every lease that expired, till they have arrived at the present exorbitance; when the frog, overswelling himself, burst at last.
** 1885, Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, The Burton Club, Volume 1, Translator’s Foreward, p. xvi,
    My annotations avoid only one subject, parallels of European folk-lore and fabliaux which, however interesting, would overswell the bulk of a book whose speciality is anthropology.
** 1923, “Proceedings of the World’s Dairy Congress”, in Session‎, volume 1, 7, p. 289:A frequent difficulty in the manufacture of Emmental cheese in America, and perhaps elsewhere, is a tendency for the cheese to overswell.
** 1998, Pamela Norris, chapter 10, in Eve: A Biography‎, New York: New York University Press, page 322:[The monster’s] ungrateful progeny rush to gorge on her blood, but it overswells their bellies and they literally burst to death.

#### See also

* overswollen

### Noun

overswell (plural overswells)
* An excessive or sudden increase or flood (of something).
    Synonym: surge
** 1978, Constance Backhouse, Leah Cohen, chapter 3, in The Secret Oppression: Sexual Harassment of Working Women‎, Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, page 54:[The trial] drew a crowd […] that almost stormed the City Hall corridors. Three policement were needed to keep back the overswell.
** 1983, Kenneth A. McClane, “From a Silent Center” in A Tree Beyond Telling, San Francisco: Black Scholar Press, p. 31,
    when no Jihad / opens the conceived / to distention, the reedy creek / to overswells / of mudwallow:
** 1997, David Njoku, Eve‎, Lagos: True Tales Publication, page 53:I could feel that my overswell of emotions had communicated itself to him.

### Anagrams

* overwells