The story
- Old English · inherited fromoferniman“to take violently, take away, carry off, confiscate”
- Middle English · inherited fromovernimen
- English todayovernim
From Middle English overnimen, from Old English oferniman (“to take violently, take away, carry off, confiscate”), equivalent to over- + nim (“to take”). Cognate with Dutch overnemen (“to take over”), German übernehmen (“to take over”).
Words from the same roots
Middle Englishovernimen all →
overtake
Old Englishoferniman all →
overtake
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.