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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

overreach.

To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˌəʊvəˈɹiːt͡ʃ/Received-Pronunciation/ˌoʊvə(ɹ)ˈɹit͡ʃ/General-American
  1. To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree.

    ambitransitive
  2. To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree. To defeat or override a person's interest in property; (UK, specifically) of a holder of the legal title of real property: by mortgaging or selling the legal title to a third party, to cause another person's equitable right in the property to be dissolved and to be replaced by an equitable right in the money received from the third party.

    ambitransitive · transitive
  3. To do something beyond an appropriate limit, or beyond one's ability; to overextend.

    ambitransitive · figuratively
  4. Of a horse: to strike the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot.

    ambitransitive · reflexive
  5. To deceive, to swindle.

    ambitransitive · archaic
  6. To sail on one tack farther than is necessary.

    intransitive
  7. To get the better of, especially by artifice or cunning; to outwit.

    archaic · transitive
Where this word comes from

The verb is from Middle English overrechen (“to rise above; to extend beyond or over; to encroach; to catch, overtake; to reach; to obtain wrongfully (?); to take up (a book) to revise it”) [and other forms], equivalent to over- + reach; the noun is derived from the verb or from the phrase to reach over.

noun/ˈəʊvə(ˌ)ɹiːt͡ʃ/Received-Pronunciation/ˈoʊvə(ɹ)ˌɹit͡ʃ/General-American
  1. An act of extending or reaching over, especially if too far or too much; overextension.

    also · countable · figuratively · uncountable
  2. Of a horse: an act of striking the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot; an injury caused by this action.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

The verb is from Middle English overrechen (“to rise above; to extend beyond or over; to encroach; to catch, overtake; to reach; to obtain wrongfully (?); to take up (a book) to revise it”) [and other forms], equivalent to over- + reach; the noun is derived from the verb or from the phrase to reach over.

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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.