overtake

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
It was a good round score to overtake, and things did not promise cheerfully for us at the commencement of our innings.

View all »
Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. transitive verb To catch up with; draw even or level with.
  2. transitive verb To pass after catching up with.
  3. transitive verb To come upon unexpectedly; take by surprise: geopolitical strategists who were overtaken by events in southeast Asia.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • It was Palm Sunday, of the year 1728; I was informed she was that moment gone to church; I hasten after her, overtake, and speak to her.—The place is yet fresh in my memory—how can it be otherwise? —  The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Entire
  • The Riders were too swift to overtake, and too many to oppose. —  The Lord of the Rings
  • So why not just save the valuable office space that server rooms have expanded to overtake, the power costs, complex network wiring, and the cost and risk of knowing how to, and actually doing this infrastructure stuff well?
  • At a safe opportunity I decided to overtake, and floored it to quickly get to a safe speed. —  Telegraph Blogs
  • Although some said it would overtake the top name, Jack, this does not appear to have happened as of yet. —  Conservapedia - Recent changes [en]
More examples »
 

Tags

overtake hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 71 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

overtake:   overtook ·  overtaking ·  overtaken
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English overtaken; from over + take.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈoʊvərtæk/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a week.

Recently looked up

imbue · preamble · sea-girt · sweetpeas · FREDERICTON

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

rimshot · qualms · poofter · oh for heaven's sake · embodies