overpeer

English edit

Etymology edit

Pronunciation edit

Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

Verb edit

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

To peer over; to overlook.
- 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]:
  […] 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,^[1]
  In Admirals’ Row […] Miss Sally Tregentil would overpeer her blind and draw back in a flutter lest the Major had observed her.
(figuratively) To rise above.
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v]:
  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,^[2]
  These patches are but meagre second growth, with here and there a gnarled birch or overpeering pine, lonely survivor of the primeval brotherhood.

References edit

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