Word: overreach Part of Speech: verb Etymology: The verb is from Middle English overrechen (“to rise above; to extend beyond or over; to encroach; to catch, overtake; to reach; to obtain wrongfully (?); to take up (a book) to revise it”) [and other forms], equivalent to over- + reach; the noun is derived from the verb or from the phrase to reach over. Pronunciation: /ˌəʊvəˈɹiːt͡ʃ/, /ˌoʊvə(ɹ)ˈɹit͡ʃ/ 1. To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree. Labels: ambitransitive Example: [...] I cannot forget what the poet Martial saith; "O quantum est subitis casibus ingenium!" signifying, that accident is many times more subtle than foresight, and overreacheth expectation; [...] Example: Writhing under his deficiency of means, he [William Hazlitt] struggled to supersede practice, overreach time, and bound at once to the conclusion. 2. To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree. Labels: ambitransitive, transitive Example: [A]n equitable mortgage, by deposit of deeds to a person, bona fide, and without notice, will give him a preferable equity; and will overreach the vendor's equitable lien on the estate for any part of the purchase-money. Example: Wood therefore cannot, in equity, be permitted to proceed in his ejectment suit, to recover possession of the land under the title he has acquired from the state, by the attorney general's sale, and which at law overreaches the complainant's title. 3. To do something beyond an appropriate limit, or beyond one's ability; to overextend. Labels: ambitransitive, figuratively Example: The British Empire would not have endured so long had it not been for a discreet sense of moderation in its rulers, generation after generation. The coolness displayed towards the colonies by successive British Governments has at least prevented the empire-builders from overreaching themselves. Example: Records [of library loans] must be protected from the self-appointed guardians of public and private morality and from officials who might overreach their constitutional prerogatives. Without such protection, there would be a chilling effect on our library users as inquiring minds turn away from exploring varied avenues of thought because they fear the potentiality of others knowing their reading history. 4. Of a horse: to strike the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot. Labels: ambitransitive, reflexive Example: Attinto, [...] Alſo when a horſe is tainted or hurt, or ouerreacheth one foote with another, and withal doth hurt a ſinew. Example: Defective or bad form will predispose a horse to overreach. Bad shoeing will also be liable to cause the hind-foot to catch the forward one. 5. To deceive, to swindle. Labels: ambitransitive, archaic Example: Say, thou that by thy cunning overreachest thy brother in buying, selling, or bargaining, or deceivest the trust reposed in thee by thy friend, couldst thou brook to be in like sort cheated thyself? Example: Don't you see that, by this step, I overreach him? I shall be entitled to the girl's fortune without settling a ducat on her! 6. To sail on one tack farther than is necessary. Labels: intransitive Example: Where a sail vessel close hauled and a steam vessel approach so as to involve risk of collision, the rule requiring the sail vessel to keep her course requires her to beat out her tack. [...] She is not required to tack short on signal from the steam vessel when there is danger in so doing, nor need she remain in stays or overreach longer than usual when such measures are not apparently necessary to avoid a collision. 7. To get the better of, especially by artifice or cunning; to outwit. Labels: archaic, transitive Example: Wee'll ouer-reach the grey-beard Gremio, / The narrow prying father Minola, / The quaint Muſician, amorous Litio, / All for my Maſters ſake Lucentio. Example: That ſkull had a tongue in it, and could ſing once, how the knave iowles it to the ground, as if twere Caines iawbone, that did the firſt murder, this might be the pate of a pollitician, which this aſſe now ore-reaches; one that would circumuent God, might it not?