overpeer

English

Etymology

over- +‎ peer

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

Verb

overpeer (third-person singular simple present overpeers, present participle overpeering, simple past and past participle overpeered)

1. To peer over.
   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act I, Scene 4,^[1]

     […] the English, in the suburbs close intrench’d,

     Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars

     In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,

     And thence discover how with most advantage

     They may vex us with shot, or with assault.

   • 1906, Arthur Quiller-Couch (under the pseudonym “Q”), The Mayor of Troy, London: Methuen, Chapter 1, p. 16,^[2]

     In Admirals’ Row […] Miss Sally Tregentil would overpeer her blind and draw back in a flutter lest the Major had observed her.

2. (figuratively) To rise above.
   • c. 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5,^[3]

     The ocean, overpeering of his list,

     Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste

     Than Young Laertes, in a riotous head,

     O’erbears Your offices.

   • 1896, Charles G. D. Roberts, The Forge in the Forest, Boston: Lamson, Wolffe & Co., Part I, Foreward, p. 12,^[4]

     These patches are but meagre second growth, with here and there a gnarled birch or overpeering pine, lonely survivor of the primeval brotherhood.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “overpeer”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)