OVERLAY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Overlay

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/ˈoʊvərlˌeɪ/ Listen

noun

Overlay n.

1.

A covering.

2.

(Printing) A piece of paper pasted upon the tympan sheet to improve the impression by making it stronger at a particular place.

3.

(Computers) A subroutine which occupies a portion of main memory which is occupied at some other time by another subroutine during execution of the same program. Overlays were used as an older technique to allow larger programs to be executed in restricted main memory space; the same effect is now accomplished by different techniques.

verb

Overlay v. t. (past & past part. overlaid; pres. part. overlaying)

1.

To lay, or spread, something over or across; hence, to cover; to overwhelm; to press excessively upon. "When any country is overlaid by the multitude which live upon it." "As when a cloud his beams doth overlay." "Framed of cedar overlaid with gold." "And overlay With this portentous bridge the dark abyss."

2.

Specifically: To cover (an object made of an inexpensive metal, glass, or other material) with a thin sheet of an expensive metal, especially with silver or gold. Distinguished from to plate, which is done by a chemical or electrical deposition process.

3.

To smother with a close covering, or by lying upon. "This woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it." "A heap of ashes that o'erlays your fire."

4.

(Printing) To put an overlay on.

Overlie v. t. (past overlay; past part. overlain; pres. part. overlying) To lie over or upon; specifically, to suffocate by lying upon; as, to overlie an infant. "A woman by negligence overlieth her child in her sleeping."

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Etymology of 'Overlay'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Overlay" Quotes from Famous Books

... cried he, with a laugh. "Don't overlay your yarns like that. We've certainly had a bit of a blow, but I've seen it ...

— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Age and medieval rapiers were ranged alongside some of the latest examples of the gunsmith's art. There were elephants' tusks and Mexican skulls; a stone jar of water from the well of Zem-Zem, and an ivory crucifix which had belonged to Torquemada. A mat of human hair from Borneo overlay a historical and unique rug woven in Ispahan and entirely composed of fragments of Holy Carpets from ...

— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... laid down at night whether I should sleep until sun and morning overlay the countryside; whether the whispering call of Desire Michell would summon me to an hour more exquisite than reality, less satisfying than a dream, or whether I should leap into consciousness of the Loathsome Eyes fixed coldly malignant upon me while my enemy's inhuman hate groped ...

— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... a clearing cut From the walled shadows round it shut; Each with its farm-house builded rude, By English yeoman squared and hewed, And the grim, flankered block-house bound With bristling palisades around. So, haply shall before thine eyes The dusty veil of centuries rise, The old, strange scenery overlay The tamer pictures of to-day, While, like the actors in a play, Pass in their ancient guise along The figures of my border song What time beside Cocheco's flood The white man and the red man stood, With words of peace and brotherhood; When ...

— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... for they existed on the surface of the chalk from the time it rose from the bottom of the sea to its present position. They are, in fact, the remains of a great sheet of fine sand and gravel cemented together by silex, which formerly overlay the chalk downs, the other parts of which have been dissolved and worn by wind and rain until only the harder cores or kernels survive to tell the tale. And the proof of this is not far to seek. The chalk of the London Basin is still capped by layers of such sandstone, as may be seen at Purfleet ...

— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens

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