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.

  • 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.
  • 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.

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

  • 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.
  • 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.

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