overleap

English

Alternative forms

• o'erleap (literary contraction)

Etymology

From Middle English overlepen, from Old English oferhlēapan, equivalent to over- +‎ leap. Compare Dutch overlopen (“to spill over; overflow”), German überlaufen (“to overrun; overflow”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /oʊvərˈliːp/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /əʊvəˈliːp/

Verb

overleap (third-person singular simple present overleaps, present participle overleaping, simple past and past participle overleaped or overleapt)

1. (transitive) To leap over, to jump over, to cross by jumping. [from 8th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Nor hedge, nor ditch, nor hill, nor dale she staies, / But overleapes them all, like Robucke light […].

2. (transitive) To pass over; to omit, leave out. [from 10th c.]
   • 2012, Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, Penguin, published 2013, page 141:

     It should be noted that even modest German efforts to overleap the power-political constraints on imperial expansion met with sturdy resistance from the established world powers.

3. (dated, reflexive) To make too much effort in leaping; to leap too far.

   I overleapt myself and stumbled.

References

• “overleap”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.