Meanings
present singular third person overleaps · participle present overleaping · participle past overleaped · past overleaped · participle past overleapt · past overleapt · alternative poetic o'erleap
- transitiveTo leap over, to jump over, to cross by jumping.First known use 8th c.
Nor hedge, nor ditch, nor hill, nor dale she staies, / But overleapes them all, like Robucke light […].
1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC - transitiveTo pass over; to exceed; to omit, leave out.First known use 10th c.
It should be noted that even modest German efforts to overleap the power-political constraints on imperial expansion met with sturdy resistance from the established world powers.
2012, Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, Penguin, published 2013, page 141 - datedreflexiveTo make too much effort in leaping; to leap too far.
I overleapt myself and stumbled.
Synonyms & antonyms
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Old Englishoferhlēapan
- Middle Englishoverlepen
- Englishoverleap
From Middle English overlepen, from Old English oferhlēapan. Compare Dutch overlopen (“to spill over; overflow”), German überlaufen (“to overrun; overflow”). By surface analysis, over- + leap.
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
overleap. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/overleap
“overleap.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/overleap. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “overleap,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/overleap.
Source: overleap on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.