overswell

Verb

overswell (third-person singular simple present overswells, present participle overswelling, simple past and past participle overswelled)

1. (ambitransitive) To swell or rise above (something, especially the rim of a container, the sides of something hollow, etc.).
   • In some years the river overswells its banks, causing widespread flooding.
   • Let floods o’erswell, and fiends for food howl on!1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

   Synonyms:

   overflow, spill over

2. (ambitransitive) To cause (something) to be too swollen or large; to become too swollen or large.
   • […] the rents of lands still grew higher upon every lease that expired, till they have arrived at the present exorbitance; when the frog, overswelling himself, burst at last.1729, Jonathan Swift, “Maxims Controlled in Ireland”, in The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift, volume 15, London: W. Johnston, published 1765, page 243
   • My annotations avoid only one subject, parallels of European folk-lore and fabliaux which, however interesting, would overswell the bulk of a book whose speciality is anthropology.1885, Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, The Burton Club, Volume 1, Translator’s Foreward, p. xvi

Noun

UK/ˈəʊvəswɛl/US/ˈoʊvɚˌswɛl/

overswell (plural overswells)

1. An excessive or sudden increase or flood (of something).
   • [The trial] drew a crowd […] that almost stormed the City Hall corridors. Three policement were needed to keep back the overswell.1978, Constance Backhouse, Leah Cohen, chapter 3, in The Secret Oppression: Sexual Harassment of Working Women, Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, page 54
   • when no Jihad / opens the conceived / to distention, the reedy creek / to overswells / of mudwallow:1983, Kenneth A. McClane, “From a Silent Center” in A Tree Beyond Telling, San Francisco: Black Scholar Press, p. 31

   Synonyms:

   surge