overbrow

present singular third person overbrows · participle present overbrowing · participle past overbrowed · past overbrowed

1. poetictransitiveTo hang over like a brow; to impend over.

   18000, William Wordsworth, Michael Did with a huge projection overbrow Large space beneath.

   2 more examples

   The prints of the Matlock cliffs on the Derwent, which every body has seen, will give the stranger some idea of the rocks which overbrow the partially wooded ravines, and glens down which the streams tributary to the Dove descend.

   1836, A. K. Killmister, The Oakleigh Shooting Code, page vii

   With solemn feet I tread the hill, That overbrows the lonely vale

   1852, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Woods in Winter”, in The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

plural overbrows

1. The area immediately above the eyebrow and below the forehead.

   As I translated, however, Valeo's face contorted, his overbrow furrowing as he picked at his food.

   2016, Anne Boles Levy, The Well of Prayers

   2 more examples

   If the man thall have a Mole on the overbrow, then let fuch a perfon refrayne from marriage altogether , or all his life time; for that such a person (if he marry) shall have five wives in his lifetime.

   1649, Godfridus, The Knowledge of Things Unknown, page 155

   I could not say that he didn't give the matter consideration, but while I noticed once in a while, by the lifting of an eyebrow or a slight corrugation of the overbrow, that the gubernatorial mind seemed to have some slight premonitory symptom of the induction of a thought, it passed off without apparent fruition.

   1914, Tennessee Bar Association, Proceedings of the Annual Session of the Bar Association of Tennessee, page 96

2. A projecting shelf of rock on the face of a cliff.

   For reasons of safety it was decided to drill off the overbrow and to blast it at one time to break 30,000 tons.

   1948, The Canadian Mining and Metallurgical Bulletin, page 10