overflow

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The spillage resultant from overflowing.

   “High crests of these overflows were: Manhattan, 23.0 feet, 8.0 above bankful, on June 16–17; Wamego, 20.8 feet, 4.8 feet above bankful, on June 17; Topeka, 26.8 feet, 5.8 feet above bankful, on June 17; […]”

2. (countable, uncountable)An outlet for escape of excess material.
3. (countable, uncountable)Excess, superabundance

   “GCN: Do you have an overflow of scripts? JG: I have more than we could ever do, certainly. But there's never an overflow of quality, and quality is really hard to come by, real quality.”

4. (countable, uncountable)The situation where a value exceeds the available numeric range.

verb

1. (transitive)To flow over the brim of (a container).

   “The river overflowed the levee into the road.”

   “Theſe are they that went ouer Ioꝛden in the firſt moneth, when it had ouerflowen all his* bankes, and they put to flight all them of the valleis, both toward the Eaſt, and toward the Weſt.”

   “Locally heavy rains on the 21st caused more than 2 feet of overflow on Salt Creek at Ashland, Nebr., on the 22d. Some county roads were inundated. Mill Creek which flows into the Platte River at Louisville, Nebr., overflowed its banks from the heavy rain.”

   “The shadows had begun to overflow Their stagnant puddles on the nightward side, When presently the roar of battle died”

2. (transitive)To cover with a liquid, literally or figuratively.

   “The flash flood overflowed most of the parkland and some homes.”

   “So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water […]”

3. (transitive)To cause an overflow.
4. (intransitive)To flow over the brim of a container.

   “The waters overflowed into the Ninth Ward.”

5. (intransitive)To be subject to a load that exceeds limits or capacity.

   “The hospital ER was overflowing with flu cases.”

6. (figuratively, intransitive)To be subject to a load that exceeds limits or capacity.

   “I see and feel that I want the first requisite — a heart overflowing with Divine love towards sinners”

7. (ambitransitive)To (cause to) exceed the available numeric range.

   “Calculating 255+1 will overflow an eight-bit byte.”

   “Some programs, especially online games, tend to have coding problems that leave them with memory holes - in other words, they don't delete information from your PC's memory once they're finished with it, they just keep adding and adding until everything overflows. Eventually, this can cause the game to crash to desktop, but adding more memory can help prevent this.”