Dictionary

overleap en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /oʊ.vərˈliːp/ (US)
• /əʊ.vəˈliːp/ (UK)

Etymology

From Middle English overlepen, from Old English oferhlēapan. Compare Dutch overlopen (“to spill over; overflow”), German überlaufen (“to overrun; overflow”). By surface analysis, over- + leap.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To leap over, to jump over, to cross by jumping.
   • Nor hedge, nor ditch, nor hill, nor dale she staies, / But overleapes them all, like Robucke light […]. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
2. (transitive) To pass over; to exceed; to omit, leave out.
   • It should be noted that even modest German efforts to overleap the power-political constraints on imperial expansion met with sturdy resistance from the established world powers. 2012, Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, Penguin, published 2013, page 141:
3. (dated, reflexive) To make too much effort in leaping; to leap too far.
   • I overleapt myself and stumbled.

Forms