Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To seize the positions of and defeat conclusively.
  • intransitive verb To spread or swarm over destructively.
  • intransitive verb To spread swiftly throughout.
  • intransitive verb To overflow.
  • intransitive verb To run beyond or past; overshoot.
  • intransitive verb To run or extend beyond (a limit); exceed.
  • intransitive verb To rearrange or move (set type or pictures) from one column, line, or page to another.
  • intransitive verb To set too much type for.
  • intransitive verb To print (a job order) in a quantity larger than that ordered.
  • intransitive verb To run over; overflow.
  • intransitive verb To go beyond the normal or desired limit.
  • noun An act of overrunning.
  • noun The amount by which something overruns.
  • noun The exceeding of estimated costs for product development and manufacture covered by contract.
  • noun The amount by which actual costs exceed estimates.
  • noun Printing A run over and above the quantity ordered by a customer.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To run over in speech or in thought; traverse; go over.
  • To run or spread over; grow over; cover all over; extend over or throughout; be propagated throughout.
  • To harass by hostile incursions; overcome and take possession of by invasion.
  • To outrun; run faster than (another) and leave (him) behind.
  • To run beyond; exceed; especially, to go beyond some prescribed or recognized limit, as of space or time.
  • To run over or run down; tread down; over-whelm; crash by superior force.
  • In printing, to extend, as composed types, beyond the limit first determined; carry over (words or lines) to the next line, column, or page.
  • To become superabundant or excessive; overflow; run over.
  • To extend beyond the due or desired length, as a line or page in printing, or beyond any prescribed or desired limit, as in the paying out of a line from a reel, etc.
  • noun In printing, composed type run over into the next line or page, to make space for something else, etc. See overrun, v. t., 7.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To run over; to grow or spread over in excess; to invade and occupy; to take possession of
  • transitive verb To exceed in distance or speed of running; to go beyond or pass in running.
  • transitive verb To go beyond; to extend in part beyond.
  • transitive verb To abuse or oppress, as if by treading upon.
  • transitive verb To carry over, or back, as type, from one line or page into the next after, or next before.
  • transitive verb To extend the contents of (a line, column, or page) into the next line, column, or page.
  • intransitive verb To run, pass, spread, or flow over or by something; to be beyond, or in excess.
  • intransitive verb (Print.) To extend beyond its due or desired length.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To defeat an enemy and invade in great numbers, seizing his positions conclusively.
  • verb To infest, swarm over, flow over
  • verb To run past; exceed
  • verb To continue for too long.
  • verb To readjust by shifting the excess letter(s) to the next line of a set type
  • noun An instance of overrunning
  • noun The amount by which something overruns

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb flow or run over (a limit or brim)
  • verb occupy in large numbers or live on a host
  • verb seize the position of and defeat
  • verb invade in great numbers

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

over- +‎ run.

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Examples

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  • Faramir said that Osgilath was this.

    July 22, 2012