overreach

Verb

overreach (third-person singular simple present overreaches, present participle overreaching, simple past and past participle overreached or (obsolete) overraught)

1. (ambitransitive) To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree.
   • [...] I cannot forget what the poet Martial saith; "O quantum est subitis casibus ingenium!" signifying, that accident is many times more subtle than foresight, and overreacheth expectation; [...]1616 May 7, Francis Bacon, “A Letter to the King, with His Majesty’s Observations on It”, in Basil Montagu, editor, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, new edition, volume VI...
   • Writhing under his deficiency of means, he [William Hazlitt] struggled to supersede practice, overreach time, and bound at once to the conclusion.1835, [Richard Henry Horne], “Disquisition on the Genius, Writings, and Character of William Hazlitt”, in W. J. Fox, editor, The Monthly Repository, volume IX (New Series), London: Charles Fox, […]...

   Synonyms:

   exceed, excel, forpass, go beyond, breach, cap, outreach, outcompass, outstep, outstrip

   1. (ambitransitive, transitive) To defeat or override a person's interest in property; (UK, specifically) of a holder of the legal title of real property: by mortgaging or selling the legal title to a third party, to cause another person's equitable right in the property to be dissolved and to be replaced by an equitable right in the money received from the third party.
      • [A]n equitable mortgage, by deposit of deeds to a person, bona fide, and without notice, will give him a preferable equity; and will overreach the vendor's equitable lien on the estate for any part of the purchase-money.1813, Edward Burtenshaw Sugden, “Of the Vendor’s Lien on the Estate Sold for the Purchase-money, if Not Paid”, in A Practical Treatise of the Law of Vendors & Purchasers of Estates, 4th edition...
      • Wood therefore cannot, in equity, be permitted to proceed in his ejectment suit, to recover possession of the land under the title he has acquired from the state, by the attorney general's sale, and which at law overreaches the complainant's title.1834 October 21, Reuben H[yde] Walworth, Chancellor, New York Court of Chancery, “Kellogg vs. Wood”, in Alonzo C[hristopher] Paige, editor, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of...
2. (ambitransitive, figuratively) To do something beyond an appropriate limit, or beyond one's ability; to overextend.
   • The British Empire would not have endured so long had it not been for a discreet sense of moderation in its rulers, generation after generation. The coolness displayed towards the colonies by successive British Governments has at least prevented the empire-builders from overreaching themselves.1947, C[harles] E[dmund] Carrington, “Imperialism in Retreat”, in An Exposition of Empire (Current Problems; 28), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: At the University Press, →OCLC, page 110
   • Records [of library loans] must be protected from the self-appointed guardians of public and private morality and from officials who might overreach their constitutional prerogatives. Without such protection, there would be a chilling effect on our library users as inquiring minds turn away from...1982, New York State Assembly, [Supporting Memorandum for Section 4509 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules] (L. 1982, chapter 14); quoted in Robert S. Peck, “Just between You and Your...
3. (ambitransitive, reflexive) Of a horse: to strike the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot.
   • Attinto, [...] Alſo when a horſe is tainted or hurt, or ouerreacheth one foote with another, and withal doth hurt a ſinew.1598, John Florio, “Attinto”, in A Worlde of Words, or Most Copious, and Exact Dictionarie in Italian and English, […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield for Edw[ard] Blount, →OCLC, page 32, column 3
   • Defective or bad form will predispose a horse to overreach. Bad shoeing will also be liable to cause the hind-foot to catch the forward one.1864, John Nicholson Navin, “Vices of the Horse”, in Navin’s Veterinary Practice: Or Explanatory Horse Doctor. […], Indianapolis, Ind.: Published for the author; stereotyped at the Franklin Type...
4. (ambitransitive, archaic) To deceive, to swindle.
   • Say, thou that by thy cunning overreachest thy brother in buying, selling, or bargaining, or deceivest the trust reposed in thee by thy friend, couldst thou brook to be in like sort cheated thyself?1634, Robert Sanderson, “Sermon VI.”, in William Jacobson, compiler, The Works of Robert Sanderson, D.D. sometime Bishop of Lincoln, volume II, Oxford, Oxfordshire: University Press, published 1854...
   • Don't you see that, by this step, I overreach him? I shall be entitled to the girl's fortune without settling a ducat on her!1775, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Duenna, II.4

   Synonyms:

   cheat, defraud, abuse, beglammer, counterfeit, deceive, catch, trap into, dissemble, dissimulate

5. (intransitive) To sail on one tack farther than is necessary.
   • Where a sail vessel close hauled and a steam vessel approach so as to involve risk of collision, the rule requiring the sail vessel to keep her course requires her to beat out her tack. [...] She is not required to tack short on signal from the steam vessel when there is danger in so doing, nor...1903, “Ships and Shipping”, in David S. Garland and Lucius P. McGehee, under the supervision of James Cockcroft, editors, The American and English Encyclopædia of Law, 2nd edition, volume XXV...
6. (archaic, transitive) To get the better of, especially by artifice or cunning; to outwit.
   • Wee'll ouer-reach the grey-beard Gremio, / The narrow prying father Minola, / The quaint Muſician, amorous Litio, / All for my Maſters ſake Lucentio.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
   • That ſkull had a tongue in it, and could ſing once, how the knave iowles it to the ground, as if twere Caines iawbone, that did the firſt murder, this might be the pate of a pollitician, which this aſſe now ore-reaches; one that would circumuent God, might it not?c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...

Noun

UK/ˈəʊvə(ˌ)ɹiːt͡ʃ/US/ˈoʊvə(ɹ)ˌɹit͡ʃ/

overreach (countable and uncountable, plural overreaches)

1. (also, figuratively) An act of extending or reaching over, especially if too far or too much; overextension.
   • It may not be much of a stretch to say that there had always been something comforting about the earlier periods of judicial activism. [...] Ideology aside, one may concede that such Supreme Court activism was far less frightening in its institutional overreach than a wholesale creation of new and...1997, William P. Kreml, “Warren Critiqued”, in The Constitutional Divide: The Public and Private Sectors in American Law, Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 156
   • [T]hat's something that I think everyone in the White House understood was danger. We thought it was necessary, But I'm sympathetic to folks who looked at it and said, this is looking like potential overreach.2010 November 3, Barack Obama, “The President’s News Conference: November 3, 2010”, in Barack Obama: 2010 (In Two Books) (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States), book II (July 1 to...
2. Of a horse: an act of striking the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot; an injury caused by this action.
   • The hunter's [i.e., hunting horse's] legs should be washed with warm water, carefully examined for thorns, overreaches, &c., and the legs should be rubbed dry, and well hand rubbed, by which means a free circulation of the blood will be promoted.1833 April, “Teaching the Horse to Leap”, in T. B. Johnson, editor, The Sportsman’s Cabinet, and Town and Country Magazine, volume I, number 6, London: Published by Sherwood, Gilbert, & Piper, […]...
   • Overreach.—This unpleasant noise, known also by the terms ‘clicking’, ‘overreach’, &c., arises from the toe of the hind foot knocking against the shoe of the fore foot.1833 October, “Art. LXVI.—The Vices, and Disagreeable or Dangerous Habits of the Horse. [From the Library of Useful Knowledge.]”, in John D. Legare, editor, The Southern Agriculturist, and Register...