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Overreach   /ˈoʊvərrˌitʃ/   Listen
Overreach

verb
(past & past part. overreached, obs. overraught; pres. part. overreaching)
1.
Fail by aiming too high or trying too hard.
2.
Beat through cleverness and wit.  Synonyms: beat, circumvent, outfox, outsmart, outwit.  "She outfoxed her competitors"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Overreach" Quotes from Famous Books



... York as a young man he was a teacher, and teachers are not generally very rich. At last he went into business, starting in a small way, and worked his way up by degrees. But there was one thing he determined in the beginning: that he would be strictly honorable in all his dealings, and never overreach any one for the sake of making money. If there was a chance for him, Dick, there is a chance ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... upon them; others make their flowers into the shape of a certain fly that is a great pillager of honey, so that when the real fly comes it thinks that the flowers are bespoke, and goes on elsewhere. Some are so clever as even to overreach themselves, like the horse-radish, which gets pulled up and eaten for the sake of that pungency with which it protects itself against underground enemies. If, on the other hand, they think that any insect can be of service to them, see how pretty ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... imagine, I too had battered my brain with various conjectures, but without practical result till one night after hunting all day, and having lamed my mare badly with an overreach, I was returning slowly homeward by a short cut across Eston Nab, so as to strike the Guisboro' Road, and thence ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... number of animals in high position or of individuals who are remarkable neither for their mind nor for their energy, but who, by their position, have wealth, connections, influence, power. We must exploit them in every possible manner, overreach them, deceive them, and, getting hold of their dirty secrets, make them our slaves." (Sec. 18.) ... "The fourth class is composed of sundry ambitious persons in the service of the State and of liberals of various shades of opinion. With them we can conspire after ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... mother!" Then she added, in a different tone, "Don't you think there is any danger of our being too obliging? I'm not the only girl in town whose mother wishes her to oblige Dr. Ballard. May we not overreach ourselves?" ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... men call it vulgar, if they will, The trade that thrives while sleeps the sleepyhead; Yes, knavery, not bravery, call it still, To overreach confiding folk a-bed. ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... of the pirate commander, who had only changed the mode of John's death because he thought that by so doing he should render it more fearful and bitter to the victim, was the means of saving the poor cockney's life. So do revenge and malice often overreach themselves. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... Canaanised) has deceitful balances in his hand, and loves to overreach. Ephraim indeed saith, I am become rich, I have gained weealth; but all his profits will not suffice for (expiation of) the guilt ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... repertoire, Jack Sheppard, Don Cesar de Bazan, His Last Legs, London Assurance, Old Heads and Young Hearts, and some other dramas. Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas were devotees of the theater. I enjoyed Richelieu and Macbeth, and I had seen Forrest as Sir Charles Overreach and Claude Melnotte; but for many of the plays I did not care. Douglas was indifferent to the theater. He was himself too much of a player on the stage of American affairs to be illusioned by ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... "You overreach yourself, Mr. Clifford. Your gross insinuation compels me to go at once to Lady Clifford and inform her that I cannot remain longer under the same roof with a person who has so ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of ...
— Southern Horrors - Lynch Law in All Its Phases • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... "this odious and shameful trial," says Guizot, "the judges' prejudiced servility and scientific subtlety were employed for three months to wear out the courage or overreach the understanding of a young girl of nineteen, who made no defence beyond holding her tongue or appealing to God, who had dictated to her that which she had done." Formal accusation was made under twelve heads or articles, based on the preliminary examination, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... face with the lamb, it will eat up the lamb first and justify its conduct afterwards. And in this argument there is a certain amount of truth; but those who take it for the whole truth allow their own cynicism to overreach them. The fact remains that even the wolves of the human world are obliged to assume, as a kind of necessary armour, and often as their principal weapon, a semblance of justice, however they may despise the reality. The brigand chief ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... compare Convennole to a whetstone, which is blunt itself, but which sharpens others. His old master, however was sharp enough to overreach him in the matter of borrowing and lending. When the poet had collected a considerable library, Convennole paid him a visit, and, pretending to be engaged in something that required him to consult Cicero, borrowed a copy of one of the works of that orator, which was particularly valuable. He made ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... the delight of the Washington playgoers in the Jackson Administration. His wonderful impersonations of Richard III., Iago, King Lear, Othello, Shylock, and Sir Giles Overreach were as grand as his private life was intemperate and eccentric. He was a short, dumpy man, with features resembling those of the Roman Emperors, before his nose was broken in a quarrel, and his deportment on the stage was imperially grand. He had a farm in Maryland, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... appears there cannot be greater folly and wickedness than for young people who are thinking of marrying to attempt to deceive each other. What is the good of it? A very short period of married life will entirely dispel the illusion. I suppose people of the world may think it fair to overreach one another in their dealings, saying "everyone for himself." They have no intention of seeking to promote the other's happiness; present gain is all they want. But a married pair, to ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... should I not hear what he has to say? He would not have come here without some excellent reason—perhaps he wants to pay up part of his debt to me, or maybe he has some scheme with money in it to unfold. He'll certainly try to overreach me again; but then once bitten twice shy. I'll be on my guard." Then with an attempt at ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... me of ulterior aims she would suspect me less if I should be businesslike, and yet I consented not to be so. It was possible she intended her omission as an impertinence, a visible irony, to show how she could overreach people who attempted to overreach her. On that hypothesis it was well to let her see that one did not notice her little tricks. The real reading of the matter, I afterward perceived, was simply the poor old woman's desire to emphasize the fact that I ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James

... himself out of his element, resolves to "bide his time" in patience until chance may throw him among more congenial associates. Mickey Free, who was himself no mean proficient in reading a character, at one glance saw his man, and began hammering his brains to see if he could not overreach him. The small portmanteau which contained Billy's wardrobe bore the conspicuous announcement of his name; and as Mickey could read, this was ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... play." The subtle and criminal part of Benjamin's mind began to see that the affair would place his landlord and mortgagee in his power, and relieve him for evermore from financial pressure. To his peculiar conscience it was justifiable to overreach his grasping creditor, a right and proper thing to upset the shrewd Varnhagen's plans: a thought of the proposed breach of the law, statutory and moral, did ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... insult to our understandings and an affront to our morals. The pretender to politeness is a cheat. He tries to palm off the base for the genuine; and, although he may deceive the vulgar, he cannot overreach the cultivated. True politeness springs from right feelings; it is a good heart, manifesting itself in an agreeable life; it is a just regard for the rights and happiness of others in small things; it is the expression of true and generous sentiments in a graceful form of words; ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady



Words linked to "Overreach" :   trounce, go wrong, outgo, surmount, outstrip, outmatch, vanquish, outdo, beat out, exceed, outperform, crush, fail, miscarry, shell, surpass



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