Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use overrun in a sentence

31 example sentences · verb, noun

Overrun means to defeat an enemy and invade in great numbers, seizing the enemy positions conclusively. Example: “The cathedral square was overrun with tourists.”

Examples of overrun by meaning

verbTo infest, swarm over, flow over.

  • The cathedral square was overrun with tourists.
  • The vine overran its trellis; the field is overrun with weeds.

verbTo run past; to run beyond.

  • The athlete overran the finish line and kept going.
  • One line overruns another in length.
  • The collision occurred when an up empty electric train travelling on the up main through line overran the inner home signal and rammed the side of the departing 6.14 p.m.1961 March, “Talking of trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 138

verbTo run past the end of.

  • The aircraft didn't stop in time and overran the runway.

verbTo continue for too long.

  • The performance overran by ten minutes, which caused some people to miss their bus home.

verbTo go beyond; to extend in part beyond.

  • In machinery, a sliding piece is said to overrun its bearing when its forward end goes beyond it.

verbTo abuse or oppress, as if by treading upon.

  • This gave our friends the cover to develop the vibrant economy and flourishing democracy we see today and prevented them from being overrun by the same tyrants who are now in the process of eradicating democracy in Hong Kong.2005, Jesse Helms, “Jimmy Carter”, in Here's Where I Stand: A Memoir, New York: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 106–107

nounAn instance of overrunning.

  • Some of the stadiums being built for the World Cup soccer tournament, scheduled for next year, have also been criticized for delays and cost overruns, and have become subjects of derision as protesters question whether they will become white elephants.2013 June 18, Simon Romero, “Protests Widen as Brazilians Chide Leaders”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 11 Aug 2020
  • Tesla’s first decade was plagued by unmet deadlines, technical snafus and cost overruns.2021 December 13, Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger, Alejandro de la Garza, “Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021”, in TIME, archived from the...

nounThe amount by which something overruns.

  • At least this year's overrun isn't as unmanageable as last year!

More sentences with overrun

  • The plane touched down long and overran the end of the runway.From the entry long
  • The king of Bimsa sued for peace after Nynal's armies overran his territory; he knew any further resistance would only harm the common people.From the entry sue
  • The jungle-planet Pragia is overrun by choking hypergrowth caused by industrially-mutated plant species.2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Pragia. From the entry hypergrowth
  • Honda still has the reputation of being overrun by whiskeries and brothels.2008, V!VA Travel Guides Colombia, Viva Publishing Network, →ISBN, page 193. From the entry whiskery
  • The industry became overrun with a new generation of marketing geniuses.2001, Kim Bolton, Chris Wave, Conversations at the Girlville Diner. From the entry shaveable
  • In the past decade development has overrun much of China's arable land.1998 October, T. R. Reid, “Feeding the Planet”, in National Geographic, number 4, page 75. From the entry bok choy
  • This call was used only in the direst of tactical situations, when a ground unit was overrun by enemy forces.2010, Danny W. Davis, The Phinehas Priesthood, →ISBN. From the entry broken arrow
  • The firm notes that value is important; closeouts, inventory overruns, mismanufactures, and items "whose time has not come" are featured.2003, CQ: The Radio Amateurs' Journal - Volume 59, Issues 7-12, page 89. From the entry mismanufacture
  • Except in a few trivial cases, it generally isn't possible to prove that a buffer overrun isn't exploitable.2002, David LeBlanc, Michael Howard, Writing Secure Code, Pearson Education, →ISBN, page 133. From the entry buffer overrun
  • The only other problem is that there's a nagging tendency for the highlight to overrun when cursoring through file lists.1990 May 28, InfoWorld, volume 12, number 22. From the entry cursor
  • If we got overrun, it was just tough titties.1983, Mark Baker, Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There, Berkley Books, →OCLC, page 140. From the entry tough titties
  • Doctors and nurses on the front lines are running on empty, under increasing duress as the pandemic surges and hospitals are overrun with patients.2020 November 25, Katherine J. Wu, “Covid Combat Fatigue: ‘I Would Come Home With Tears in My Eyes’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry run on empty
  • Japanese soldiers committed a number of atrocities on 19 December, when the aid post at the Silesian Mission near Sau Ki Wan was overrun.2017 August 5, Merriam Press, World War 2 In Review No. 11, Lulu Press, Inc, →ISBN. From the entry Sau Ki Wan
  • They leaped the wall, slid down the dugout roofs, overran the cops, flooded in from the outfield bleachers, threw hats and scorecards into the air.2015, Robert Coover, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.. From the entry blow the roof off
  • So many of the Françaises marry you Americans that in twenty years—pouf!—their children will overrun France and it will be France no longer.1925, The American Legion Weekly, volume 7, page 19. From the entry Française
  • The city was overrun with violent gangs and controlled by corrupt public officials who were regularly purged by the government in Beijing, only to be replaced by new ones.2015, Yeonmi Park, Maryanne Vollers, “Kidnapped”, in In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom (Non-fiction), Penguin…. From the entry Shenyang
  • At the same time, the Japanese army overran Korea and the Liaotung Peninsula before making a land attack on Port Arthur, which eventually fell to the invaders.2011, The Crimes of Stalin: the Murderous Career of the Red Tsar, Arcturus Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 53. From the entry Liaotung
  • Under the leadership of P'O-LIU-HAN Pa-ling 破六韓拔陵, the rebels, consisting chiefly of "barbarian" garrisons of the northern frontier posts overran the important district of Wu-ch'uan 武川.1938, Peter A. Boodberg, “Marginalia to the Histories of the Northern Dynasties”, in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, volume 3, →ISSN…. From the entry Wu-ch'uan
  • He visited Chennault's frontline airfield at Kweilin (soon to be overrun by the Japanese) and met the optimistic generals who believed that China and Chiang could be saved by airpower.2000, John C. Culver, John Hyde, American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace, W. W. Norton & Co., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL…. From the entry Kweilin

Meaning of overrun

  1. verb To defeat an enemy and invade in great numbers, seizing the enemy positions conclusively.
  2. verb To infest, swarm over, flow over.
  3. verb To run past; to run beyond.

Full definition of overrun

Questions about overrun in a sentence

How do you use overrun in a sentence?
Overrun is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The cathedral square was overrun with tourists.”
What is a short sentence with overrun?
“One line overruns another in length.”
What does overrun mean?
Overrun means to defeat an enemy and invade in great numbers, seizing the enemy positions conclusively.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overrun (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use overrun in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/overrun. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.