Word.ws English Dictionary

overlayed

overlayed is the simple past and past participle of overlay.

Meaning of overlay

Verb

overlay (third-person singular simple present overlays, present participle overlaying, simple past and past participle overlaid or overlayed)

  1. (transitive) To lay, spread, or apply (something) over or across (something else); to overspread.
    • Near-synonyms: cover, superimpose, superpose
  2. To overwhelm; to press excessively upon.
    • when any country is overlaid by the multitude which live upon itc. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War
  3. (archaic, transitive) To lie over (someone, especially a child) in order to smother it; to suffocate.
    • And this womans childe died in the night: because she ouerlaid it.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Kings 3:19
  4. (transitive) To put an overlay on.
  5. (transitive) To bet too much money on.
    • […] he has 'overlaid' his book, and has not succeeded in 'getting round' by bets against the other horses.1890, The Twentieth Century, volume 27, page 934

See all 14 meanings of overlay

Questions about overlayed

What is overlayed the simple past and past participle of?
Overlayed is the simple past and past participle of overlay.

Words near overlayed in the dictionary

  1. overlaxity
  2. overlaxness
  3. overlay
  4. overlay scrollbar
  5. overlay scrollbars
  6. overlayed
  7. overlayer
  8. overlayered
  9. overlayers
  10. overlaying
  11. overlayings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overlayed (page history and authors); overlay (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: “overlayed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overlayed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.