oversets

Verb

overset (third-person singular simple present oversets, present participle oversetting, simple past and past participle overset)

1. (transitive) To knock over or overturn (someone or something); to capsize, to upset.
   • For ſtill thy eyes, vvhich I may call the ſea, / Do ebbe and flovve vvith teares, the Barke thy body is: / Sayling in this ſalt floud, the vvindes thy ſighes, / Who raging vvith thy teares and they vvith them, / VVithout a ſudden calme vvill ouerſet / Thy tempeſt toſſed body.c. 1591–1595 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] Romeo and Iuliet. […] (Second Quarto), London: […] Thomas Creede, for Cuthbert Burby, […], published 1599, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v], signature...
2. (figuratively, transitive) To physically or mentally disturb (someone); to upset; specifically, to make (someone) ill, especially nauseous; to nauseate, to sicken.
   • O Lord, O Lord, ſhe's mad, poor Young VVoman, Love has turn'd her ſenſes, her Brain is quite overſet.1695, [William] Congreve, Love for Love: A Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 65

   Synonyms:

   discompose

3. (figuratively, transitive) To throw (something, such as an organization, a plan, etc.) into confusion or out of order; to subvert, to unsettle, to upset.
   • [H]ad not the old Man run and fetch'd me a Cordial, I believe the ſudden Surprize of Joy had overſet Nature, and I had dy'd upon the Spot.1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 338
4. (figuratively, rare, transitive) To translate (a text).
   • Overset into English, after the spirits and measures of the authentical; by Dr. Heinrich Krauss, Ph.D., and so wider.1878 November 30, “‘Wanted, a Private Tutor’”, in [James Macaulay], editor, The Leisure Hour, volume XXVII, number 1405, London: [Religious Tract Society], →OCLC, page 756, column 2
5. (figuratively, transitive) To set (copy or type) in excess of a given space.
   • Other [newspaper] articles, again, are rejected because there is no time to consider them, or because they are badly written, and the printers have no time to lose in bungling over hieroglyphics. The overseer now sees that he will have too much matter; and although all the week he has been...1855 October, Frederic Carrington, “Country Newspapers and Their Editors”, in William Harrison Ainsworth, editor, The New Monthly Magazine, volume CV, number CCCCXVIII, London: Chapman and Hall, […]...
6. (Scotland, figuratively, transitive) To recover from (an illness).

See all 21 meanings of overset