overfall

See also: överfall

English edit

Etymology edit

From Middle English overfallen, from Old English oferfeallan (“to fall upon, attack”), from Proto-West Germanic *obarfallan, *ubirfallan, from Proto-Germanic *ubirfallaną; equivalent to over- +‎ fall. Cognate with Dutch overvallen (“to raid, overtake”), German überfallen (“to assault, attack, raid”), Swedish överfalla (“to attack”).

Pronunciation edit

(noun):
- (UK): IPA^(key): /ˈəʊvəfɔːl/
- Audio (Southern England) (file)
- (US): IPA^(key): /ˈoʊvɚfɔl/
(verb):
- (UK): IPA^(key): /əʊvəˈfɔːl/
- Audio (Southern England) (file)
- (US): IPA^(key): /oʊvɚˈfɔl/

Noun edit

overfall (plural overfalls)

A turbulent section of a body of water, caused by strong currents passing over submerged ridges.
Part of a garment that hangs so as to cover a lower part.

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

A turbulent section of a body of water, caused by strong currents passing over submerged ridges

Irish: brachlainn f, bruth m
Spanish: please add this translation if you can

Verb edit

overfall (third-person singular simple present overfalls, present participle overfalling, simple past overfell, past participle overfallen)

(transitive) To fall on or spill over so as to cover (something).
- 1927, The Argosy - Volume 1, Issues 9-12, page 22:
  But her laugh stuck in her throat, for at that moment a shadow overfell the two houses
- 1978 ·, John Christgau, Spoon, page 16:
  1 of these ladies was strikingly handsome, with long black hair which overfell her face as she worked.
- 1978, Robert H. Boyer, Kenneth J. Zahorski, Dark Imaginings: A Collection of Gothic Fantasy, page 165:
  The troll overfell him. A moment he lay under that mass and could not breathe.
- 2005, Theodore Ziolkowski, Ovid and the Moderns, page 61:
  But you, divine one, you, resounding to the end, when the swarm of rejected Maenads overfell him, you sounded over their screams with order; o beautiful one, out of the destroyers arose your uplifting play.
- 2017, Alastair Macleod, The Third Norn: at Bennibister:
  When the tidal surge hits Britain, one arm goes up the west coast and the other goes through the English Channel. The slight time delay in their meeting cause one to overfall the other at certain points in Orkney.
(transitive) To change or affect so as to pervade (something); to come over
- 1889, Snorri Sturluson, Samuel Laing, Rasmus Bjørn Anderson, The Heimskringla:
  From thence King Hakon proceeded up the Dovrefield; but as he was going over the mountains he road all day after a ptarmigan, which flew up beside him , and in this chase a sickness overfell him, which ended in his death ; and he died on the mountains.
- 1916, Katharine Tynan, The Middle Years, page 197:
  Such a blankness overfell his face!
- 1923, Harold Marcus Wiener, The Prophets of Israel in History and Criticism - Part 3, page 171:
  All three passages refer to the disaster that overfell Sennacherib's host and to nothing else.
- 1929, Shane Leslie, A Ghost in the Isle of Wight, page 17:
  Then a possessive silence overfell the house, and I was unable to fall to sleep again.
- 1941, Alfred Kreymborg, Poetic Drama, page 815:
  A faintness overfell me.
- 1971, Lloyd C. Gardner, Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy, page 57:
  But in the fall of 1933 deep shadows from Cuba overfell the Montevideo Foreign Ministers Conference, where Secretary Hull hoped to restart his trade program after having been stalled at London.
- 1985, Mohd. Taib Osman, Malaysian World-view, page 19:
  For example, the Qur'an says, "Say nothing will overfall us save what Allah has written for us."
- 1986, Adrienne Von Speyr, They Followed His Call: Vocation and Asceticism:
  He will not always have joy; hours of doubt will overfall him; his mistakes and weaknesses will not abandon him, He will be in the danger of increasing the multitude of the lukewarm.
(intransitive) To fall over; to spill from an edge or height.
- 1900, Muriel Hine, “A Gipsy Wooing”, in The Windsor Magazine, volume 11, page 511:
  I had arrived at this conclusion, and was meditating on my possible conduct under the circumstances, as I groped my way gingerly enough in the dark shadow of a long crumbling wall, where the ivy clustered and overfell, when round a slight bend, obscured by straggling bushes , I came upon the most unexpected and picturesque sight imaginable – that of a gipsy camp.
- 1965, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, page 54:
  A dam fitted between the sixth control group and the first insected group caused the water to overfall into the lower series and thereby prevented upstream movement of infective cysts.
- 1998, Ronald C. Cox, Michael H. Gould, Ireland, page 110:
  There is provision for excess water to overfall from the canal to the River Liffey below and, in times of water shortage, the process may be reversed using temporary pumping facilities.
(intransitive) To fall over; to topple.
- 1919, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Complete Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, page 300:
  Then back-toppling, crashing back – a dead weight flung out to wrack, Horse and riders overfell.
- 1975, Olson - Issue 3, page 14:
  But that's OK, I mean one is apt to overfall today because the work is so crucial.
- 1998, Historical New Hampshire - Volumes 53-54, page 92:
  And accordingly the said Indian went into his canoe at the mouth of the Great Bay , and when he was about a rod off the boat, the said John Keniston took up my gun and shot at him , and immediately after the canoe overfell and the Indian swimm'd towards the shore — and about a quarter of a mile further up the Bay, the other Indian which before had left the boat came off to them and inquired after his brother;
- 2002, Jack London, In Hawaii with Jack London: On the Makaloa Mat and Other Stories, page 223:
  An unusually large breaker for so mild a surf curled overhead, and he climbed out on her again, sinking both of them under as the wave crest overfell and smashed down.