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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

overlie.

To lie over or upon

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˌoʊvɚˈlaɪ/
  1. To lie over or upon

    The new sediment layers overlie the older rock formations.
  2. To suffocate by lying upon

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English overlien, overliggen, equivalent to over- + lie (“to be reclined”). Compare West Frisian oerlizze, German überliegen, Danish overligge, Swedish överligga, Norwegian overligge.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.