overreach
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: equestrianism
hobbies
horses
law
lifestyle
nautical
pets
property
sports
transport
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.
Base: reach
Affixes: over-
Inflected forms:
form: overreaches
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: overreaching
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: overreached
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: overreached
pos: verb
tags: past
form: overraught
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
participle
past
form: overraught
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
past
form: overreaches
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
examples: [...] 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; [...]
Writhing under his deficiency of means, he [William Hazlitt] struggled to supersede practice, overreach time, and bound at once to the conclusion.
The most eloquent manner of reading and of speaking, is the most easy of attainment, if sought for through the proper channel; for it is as simple as it is natural. But many who aim at it, fail by the very efforts adopted to gain it. They overreach the mark. They shoot too high. Instead of breathing forth their sentiments in the fervid glow of simple nature, which always warms, and animates, and interests the hearer, they work themselves up into a sort of frigid bombast, which chills and petrifies him.
[B]eneath [the fastigium of Conocephalus hebes, a species of bush-cricket], the whole forms a depending pointed cone, whose sides are scarcely less than a right angle with each other, and are separated by a pretty wide frontal incisure, by the slightly tuberculated tip of the front of the face which it overreaches.
In September 1926, [...] he [Patrick Hepburn] overreached his strength in his walks over the mountains and passes of his beloved Lake district, suffered leg injuries, and "was found in an exhausted condition and taken to a neighboring inn."
Don't overreach when reaching for the function keys. This causes the finger tendons to stretch. Move your hand closer to the desired key before pressing it.
gloss: To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
transitive
examples: [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.
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.
[page 215] City of London B[uilding] S[ociety] v. Flegg decided that the occupiers are not protected since a sale by two trustees overreaches. [...] [page 216] The Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the occupation of the Fleggs but, after universal academic execration, that decision was unanimously reversed by the [House of] Lords. Their occupation rights had indeed been overreached. [...] Two trustees effected what appeared to the lenders to be a proper mortgage, so that the rights of the beneficiaries were swept off the title and transferred to the mortgage money. The Fleggs could not enforce their rights against the lenders.
gloss: To do something beyond an appropriate limit, or beyond one's ability; to overextend.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
figuratively
examples: 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.
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.
Professionals must remind themselves not to overreach the extent of their data and not to substitute values for scientifically supported facts, and must know when to inform fact-finders about the extent of the limits to knowledge.
There has been some criticism that the ORR is overreaching its remit in making this decision. How does Prosser feel about the suggestion that he is 'overreaching'? "I don't believe we are. We gave the industry a long time to get their act together, and some of them have. […]"
gloss: Of a horse: to strike the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
reflexive
examples: Attinto, [...] Alſo when a horſe is tainted or hurt, or ouerreacheth one foote with another, and withal doth hurt a ſinew.
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.
gloss: To deceive, to swindle.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
archaic
examples: 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?
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!
Thou ſweareſt in his hearing; thou overreacheſt before his eyes; thou makeſt a mock of religion, and encourageſt him to do it.
In the course of the [card] game, he so far over-shot the mark as to give her instructions to overreach the others at play; and here the important "still small voice" whispered, "what! if God should call thee to judgment at this moment?"
gloss: To sail on one tack farther than is necessary.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: 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.
gloss: To get the better of, especially by artifice or cunning; to outwit.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
transitive
examples: Wee'll ouer-reach the grey-beard Gremio, / The narrow prying father Minola, / The quaint Muſician, amorous Litio, / All for my Maſters ſake Lucentio.
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?
I from the influence of thy looks receave / Acceſs in every Vertue, in thy ſight / More wiſe, more watchful, ſtronger, if need were / Of outward ſtrength; while ſhame, thou looking on, / Shame to be overcome or over-reacht / Would utmoſt vigor raiſe, and rais'd unite.
[...] Manfred, who concluded that he had either over-reached the good man, or that his firſt warmth had been but a tribute paid to appearance, was overjoyed at his ſudden turn [...]
What is essentially beneficial to one party is materially detrimental to another: they have been enemies before, and may be enemies again: so that they are constantly endeavouring to overreach each other by some separate advantage, and serious causes of animosity and dissension are perpetually arising.
Don’t you see that we have been playing a guilty game, and have been overreached […]
gloss: An act of extending or reaching over, especially if too far or too much; overextension.
pos: noun
tags: also
countable
figuratively
uncountable
examples: It may not be much of a stretch to say that there had always been something comforting about the earlier periods of judicial activism. [...] Ideology aside, one may concede that such Supreme Court activism was far less frightening in its institutional overreach than a wholesale creation of new and public law by the judicial branch would be.
[T]hat's something that I think everyone in the White House understood was danger. We thought it was necessary, But I'm sympathetic to folks who looked at it and said, this is looking like potential overreach.
When American society finally collapses under the combined weight of massive foreign debt, military overreach, and internal decadence, [Gary] North and his followers at Tyler hoped to have a network of churches ready to step into the breach.
[Damien] Chazelle and [Josh] Singer acknowledge both the impressive resourcefulness and faintly insane overreach of the space race; they were winging it, attempting the impossible with relatively primitive technology—"Boys making models out of balsa wood," Janet [Shearon Armstrong] calls them, after Director Of Flight Operations Deke Slayton (Kyle Chandler) cuts the radio feed during a mission gone wrong.
Reshaping [of British Railways] was far from perfect. It was tainted by statistical overreach, the unconscious biases of its author, and by the political demands being placed upon the BRB by government.
gloss: Of a horse: an act of striking the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot; an injury caused by this action.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The hunter's [i.e., hunting horse's] legs should be washed with warm water, carefully examined for thorns, overreaches, &c., and the legs should be rubbed dry, and well hand rubbed, by which means a free circulation of the blood will be promoted.
Overreach.—This unpleasant noise, known also by the terms ‘clicking’, ‘overreach’, &c., arises from the toe of the hind foot knocking against the shoe of the fore foot.
Derived words: overreacher
overreaching
overreachingly
overreach boot
Translations:
lang: Arabic
word: أَنَافَ
roman: ʔanāfa
lang: Arabic
word: غَلَا
roman: ḡalā
lang: Arabic
word: نَيَّفَ
roman: nayyafa
lang: Arabic
word: تَطَاوَلَ
roman: taṭāwala
lang: Bulgarian
word: надминавам
roman: nadminavam
lang: Bulgarian
word: надхвърлям
roman: nadhvǎrljam
lang: German
word: überschreiten
lang: German
word: über etwas hinausgehen
lang: Italian
word: oltrepassare
lang: Māori
word: whakakaiawe
lang: Spanish
word: extralimitarse