OVERREACH • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Overreach

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/ˈoʊvərrˌitʃ/ Listen

verb

Overreach v. t. (past & past part. overreached, obs. overraught; pres. part. overreaching)

To reach above or beyond in any direction.

To deceive, or get the better of, by artifice or cunning; to outwit; to cheat.

To defeat one's own purpose by trying to do too much or by trying too hard or with excessive eagerness; used reflexively; as, the candidate overreached himself by trying to plant false rumors, which backfired/

Overreach v. i.

To reach too far; as:

(a)

To strike the toe of the hind foot against the heel or shoe of the forefoot; said of horses.

(b)

(Naut.) To sail on one tack farther than is necessary.

To cheat by cunning or deception.

noun

Overreach n. The act of striking the heel of the fore foot with the toe of the hind foot; said of horses.

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Etymology of 'Overreach'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Overreach" Quotes from Famous Books

... sufficient knowledge for the purpose, are determined never to give you over, but either to win you heaven, or to die upon your pikes. And touching our Societie be it known to you that we have made a league—all the Jesuits in the world, whose succession and multitude must overreach all the practices of England—cheerfully to carry the cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery, while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked with your torments, or consumed with your prisons. The expense is reckoned, ...

— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... front feet are behind the large marks made by the hind feet, because the rabbit overreaches each time; the hind feet track ahead of the front feet; the faster he goes, the farther ahead those hind feet get; and what would happen if he multiplied his speed by ten I really cannot imagine. This overreach of the hind feet takes ...

— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... attentions for a twelvemonth or more, you have no right to dismiss him with no further explanation than demurely telling him that you had always looked coldly upon him; and neither your wealth nor your LADYSHIP' (there was an emphasis of scorn on the word, which would have become Sir Giles Overreach himself) 'can warrant you in treating with contempt the affectionate regard of ...

— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... particularly of a pint silver caudle-cup, the gift of her grandmother. However, in this the young lady herself afterwards took care to prevent him. As to the old Mr. Wild, he did not sufficiently attend to all the designs of Snap, as his faculties were busily employed in designs of his own, to overreach (or, as others express it, to cheat) the said Mr. Snap, by pretending to give his son a whole number for a chair, when in reality he was intitled to a ...

— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... so the reaping, Shame on us who overreach, While our eyes yet smart with weeping, Hearts so all our own to teach, Better they and we lay sleeping where the darkness hath ...

— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

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