OVERTAKE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Overtake

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈoʊvərtˌeɪk/ Listen

verb

Overtake v. t. (past overtook; past part. overtaken; pres. part. overtaking)

To come up with in a race, pursuit, progress, or motion; also, To catch up with and move ahead of. "Follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say... Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good." "He had him overtaken in his flight."

Hence: To surpass in production, achievement, etc.; as, although out of school for half a year due to illness, the student returned and overtook all the others to finish as valedictorian.

To come upon from behind; to discover; to surprise; to capture; to overcome. "If a man be overtaken in a fault." "I shall see The winged vengeance overtake such children."

Hence, figuratively, in the past participle (overtaken), drunken. (Obs.)

To frustrate or render impossible or irrelevant; used mostly of plans, and commonly in the phrase overtaken by events; as, their careful marketing plan was overtaken by events.

See images of 'Overtake'

Etymology of 'Overtake'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Overtake" Quotes from Famous Books

... peculiarity of gait which is at once recognisable. It is told of the son of a famous man, who shared with his father the distinctive family gait, that when a boy his ears were once boxed by an old gentleman who chanced to observe him hurrying to overtake his parent, and who resented what he took to be an act of impertinent caricature. In the reproduction by the child of the habitual actions of his parents, heredity is largely concerned, but imitation too plays its part. In habit spasm the force of imitation ...

— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... Revolution to develop public control of all natural resources! Already the State lands are parcelled out amongst the wealthy peasants, who as a result of this robbery will establish a great landed aristocracy, and, if I do not misread the signs, a similar fate is about to overtake the great State industries with the creation of ...

— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... miles along the foot of the Himalayas, that harbours in its dim recesses the monsters of the animal kingdom, quaint survivals of a vanished race—the rhinoceros, the elephant, the bison, and the hamadryad, that great and terrible snake which can, and does, pursue and overtake a mounted man, and which with a touch of its poisoned fang can slay the most powerful brute. The huge Himalayan bear roams under the giant trees, feeding on fruit and honey, yet ready to shatter unprovoked the skull of a poor woodcutter. Those savage striped ...

— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... get away from here as quickly as we can. If we hold a course a little south of west we ought to be able to follow the general line of the railroad and be able to overtake or meet Jimmie and Dave before they reach Verdun and ...

— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... gravel. It was only four or five feet across, and I could easily have leaped it had I not been so tired. But a rock the size of my head projected from the slippery stream of gravel. In my haste to overtake Muir I did not stop to make sure this stone was part of the cliff, but stepped with springing force upon it to cross the fissure. Instantly the stone melted away beneath my feet, and I shot with it down towards the precipice. With my peril sharp upon me I cried ...

— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

More quotes...