overflow

Noun

overflow (countable and uncountable, plural overflows)

1. The spillage resultant from overflowing.
   • High crests of these overflows were: Manhattan, 23.0 feet, 8.0 above bankful, on June 16–17; Wamego, 20.8 feet, 4.8 feet above bankful, on June 17; Topeka, 26.8 feet, 5.8 feet above bankful, on June 17; […]1943, Climatological Data, page 8
2. An outlet for escape of excess material.
3. Excess, superabundance
   • GCN: Do you have an overflow of scripts?
   • JG: I have more than we could ever do, certainly. But there's never an overflow of quality, and quality is really hard to come by, real quality.1977 February 12, Don Shewey, John Glines, “Theatre Profiles Part II”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 33, page 8
4. The situation where a value exceeds the available numeric range.

Verb

IPA/ˌəʊvəˈfləʊ/

overflow (third-person singular simple present overflows, present participle overflowing, simple past overflowed, past participle overflowed or (sometimes proscribed) overflown)

1. (transitive) To flow over the brim of (a container).
   • The river overflowed the levee into the road.
   • Theſe are they that went ouer Ioꝛden in the firſt moneth, when it had ouerflowen all his* bankes, and they put to flight all them of the valleis, both toward the Eaſt, and toward the Weſt.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Chronicles 12:15

   Synonyms:

   overrun

2. (transitive) To cover with a liquid, literally or figuratively.
   • The flash flood overflowed most of the parkland and some homes.
   • So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water […]1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
3. (transitive) To cause an overflow.
4. (intransitive) To flow over the brim of a container.
   • The waters overflowed into the Ninth Ward.

   Synonyms:

   brim over, overbrim, overflood

5. (intransitive) To be subject to a load that exceeds limits or capacity.
   • The hospital ER was overflowing with flu cases.

   Synonyms:

   brim over, overbrim

   1. (figuratively, intransitive) To have something in superabundance; to abound in something.
      • I see and feel that I want the first requisite — a heart overflowing with Divine love towards sinners1857, Eustace Rogers Conder, Josiah Conder: A Memoir
6. (ambitransitive) To (cause to) exceed the available numeric range.
   • Calculating 255+1 will overflow an eight-bit byte.
   • Some programs, especially online games, tend to have coding problems that leave them with memory holes - in other words, they don't delete information from your PC's memory once they're finished with it, they just keep adding and adding until everything overflows. Eventually, this can cause the...2008, Adam Oxford, Windows Vista - Autumn 2008, Future US, →ISSN, page 67