Word.ws English Dictionary

overfallen

overfallen is the simple past and past participle of overfall.

Meaning of overfall

Verb

overfall (third-person singular simple present overfalls, present participle overfalling, simple past overfell, past participle overfallen)

  1. (transitive) To fall on or spill over so as to cover (something).
    • But her laugh stuck in her throat, for at that moment a shadow overfell the two houses1927, The Argosy - Volume 1, Issues 9-12, page 22
  2. (transitive) To change or affect so as to pervade (something); to come over
    • From thence King Hakon proceeded up the Dovrefield; but as he was going over the mountains he road all day after a ptarmigan, which flew up beside him , and in this chase a sickness overfell him, which ended in his death ; and he died on the mountains.1889, Snorri Sturluson, Samuel Laing, Rasmus Bjørn Anderson, The Heimskringla
  3. (intransitive) To fall over; to spill from an edge or height.
    • I had arrived at this conclusion, and was meditating on my possible conduct under the circumstances, as I groped my way gingerly enough in the dark shadow of a long crumbling wall, where the ivy clustered and overfell, when round a slight bend, obscured by straggling bushes , I came upon the most...1900, Muriel Hine, “A Gipsy Wooing”, in The Windsor Magazine, volume 11, page 511
  4. (intransitive) To fall over; to topple.
    • Then back-toppling, crashing back – a dead weight flung out to wrack, Horse and riders overfell.1919, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Complete Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, page 300

See all 6 meanings of overfall

Questions about overfallen

What is overfallen the simple past and past participle of?
Overfallen is the simple past and past participle of overfall.

Words near overfallen in the dictionary

  1. overfactorization
  2. overfaint
  3. overfaithful
  4. overfaithfully
  5. overfall
  6. overfallen
  7. overfalling
  8. overfalls
  9. overfamiliar
  10. overfamiliarities
  11. overfamiliarity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overfallen (page history and authors); overfall (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “overfallen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overfallen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.