OVERTAKING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Overtaking

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/ˈoʊvərtˌeɪkɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Overtake v. t. (past overtook; past part. overtaken; pres. part. overtaking)

To come up with in a race, pursuit, progress, or motion; also, To catch up with and move ahead of. "Follow after the men; and when thou dost overtake them, say... Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good." "He had him overtaken in his flight."

Hence: To surpass in production, achievement, etc.; as, although out of school for half a year due to illness, the student returned and overtook all the others to finish as valedictorian.

To come upon from behind; to discover; to surprise; to capture; to overcome. "If a man be overtaken in a fault." "I shall see The winged vengeance overtake such children."

Hence, figuratively, in the past participle (overtaken), drunken. (Obs.)

To frustrate or render impossible or irrelevant; used mostly of plans, and commonly in the phrase overtaken by events; as, their careful marketing plan was overtaken by events.

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Etymology of 'Overtaking'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Overtaking" Quotes from Famous Books

... temptation when he rose the next morning of plotting to meet Clara, and he walked up and down the street opposite the shop door that evening nearly a quarter of an hour, just before closing time, hoping that she might come out and that he might have the opportunity of overtaking her apparently by accident. At last, fearing he might miss her, he went in and found she had a companion whom he instantly knew, before any induction, to be her sister. Madge was not now the Madge whom we knew at Fenmarket. She was thinner in the face and paler. Nevertheless, ...

— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... he suddenly became aware of six or seven bucks coming down a glade after him. The track being rough he could not ride at full speed—probably they would have outstripped him even if he had been able to do so—and they were overtaking him rapidly. As they came up he saw that they meant mischief, and fearing a bad fall he alighted by a tree, behind which he thought to dodge them. But no sooner did he touch the ground than the bucks ...

— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... out of the conveyance, which also contained several ladies, and, overtaking the animals, succeeded in turning them into ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various

... remaining as waters: their massacre and destruction would be the waters changed to blood—a horrible and unnatural element. Likewise, the death of the living things in the sea is a similar destruction overtaking the kings, ...

— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... of course, and celebrated as a marksman. It happened that MacGregor and his party had been surprised and dispersed by a superior force of horse and foot, and the word was given to "split and squander." Each shifted for himself, but a bold dragoon attached himself to pursuit of Rob, and overtaking him, struck at him with his broadsword. A plate of iron in his bonnet saved the MacGregor from being cut down to the teeth; but the blow was heavy enough to bear him to the ground, crying as he fell, "Oh, Macanaleister, is there naething in her?" (i.e. in the gun). The ...

— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

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