overreach

verb

1. (ambitransitive)To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree.

   “[...] I cannot forget what the poet Martial saith; "O quantum est subitis casibus ingenium!" signifying, that accident is many times more subtle than foresight, and overreacheth expectation; [...]”

   “Writhing under his deficiency of means, he [William Hazlitt] struggled to supersede practice, overreach time, and bound at once to the conclusion.”

   “[B]eneath [the fastigium of Conocephalus hebes, a species of bush-cricket], the whole forms a depending pointed cone, whose sides are scarcely less than a right angle with each other, and are separated by a pretty wide frontal incisure, by the slightly tuberculated tip of the front of the face which it overreaches.”

   “In September 1926, [...] he [Patrick Hepburn] overreached his strength in his walks over the mountains and passes of his beloved Lake district, suffered leg injuries, and "was found in an exhausted condition and taken to a neighboring inn."”

2. (ambitransitive, transitive)To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree.

   “[A]n equitable mortgage, by deposit of deeds to a person, bona fide, and without notice, will give him a preferable equity; and will overreach the vendor's equitable lien on the estate for any part of the purchase-money.”

   “Wood therefore cannot, in equity, be permitted to proceed in his ejectment suit, to recover possession of the land under the title he has acquired from the state, by the attorney general's sale, and which at law overreaches the complainant's title.”

3. (ambitransitive, figuratively)To do something beyond an appropriate limit, or beyond one's ability; to overextend.

   “The British Empire would not have endured so long had it not been for a discreet sense of moderation in its rulers, generation after generation. The coolness displayed towards the colonies by successive British Governments has at least prevented the empire-builders from overreaching themselves.”

   “Records [of library loans] must be protected from the self-appointed guardians of public and private morality and from officials who might overreach their constitutional prerogatives. Without such protection, there would be a chilling effect on our library users as inquiring minds turn away from exploring varied avenues of thought because they fear the potentiality of others knowing their reading history.”

   “Professionals must remind themselves not to overreach the extent of their data and not to substitute values for scientifically supported facts, and must know when to inform fact-finders about the extent of the limits to knowledge.”

   “There has been some criticism that the ORR is overreaching its remit in making this decision. How does Prosser feel about the suggestion that he is 'overreaching'? "I don't believe we are. We gave the industry a long time to get their act together, and some of them have. […]"”

4. (ambitransitive, reflexive)Of a horse: to strike the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot.

   “Attinto, [...] Alſo when a horſe is tainted or hurt, or ouerreacheth one foote with another, and withal doth hurt a ſinew.”

   “Defective or bad form will predispose a horse to overreach. Bad shoeing will also be liable to cause the hind-foot to catch the forward one.”

5. (ambitransitive, archaic)To deceive, to swindle.

   “Say, thou that by thy cunning overreachest thy brother in buying, selling, or bargaining, or deceivest the trust reposed in thee by thy friend, couldst thou brook to be in like sort cheated thyself?”

   “Don't you see that, by this step, I overreach him? I shall be entitled to the girl's fortune without settling a ducat on her!”

   “Thou ſweareſt in his hearing; thou overreacheſt before his eyes; thou makeſt a mock of religion, and encourageſt him to do it.”

   “In the course of the [card] game, he so far over-shot the mark as to give her instructions to overreach the others at play; and here the important "still small voice" whispered, "what! if God should call thee to judgment at this moment?"”

6. (intransitive)To sail on one tack farther than is necessary.

   “Where a sail vessel close hauled and a steam vessel approach so as to involve risk of collision, the rule requiring the sail vessel to keep her course requires her to beat out her tack. [...] She is not required to tack short on signal from the steam vessel when there is danger in so doing, nor need she remain in stays or overreach longer than usual when such measures are not apparently necessary to avoid a collision.”

7. (archaic, transitive)To get the better of, especially by artifice or cunning; to outwit.

   “Wee'll ouer-reach the grey-beard Gremio, / The narrow prying father Minola, / The quaint Muſician, amorous Litio, / All for my Maſters ſake Lucentio.”

   “That ſkull had a tongue in it, and could ſing once, how the knave iowles it to the ground, as if twere Caines iawbone, that did the firſt murder, this might be the pate of a pollitician, which this aſſe now ore-reaches; one that would circumuent God, might it not?”

   “I from the influence of thy looks receave / Acceſs in every Vertue, in thy ſight / More wiſe, more watchful, ſtronger, if need were / Of outward ſtrength; while ſhame, thou looking on, / Shame to be overcome or over-reacht / Would utmoſt vigor raiſe, and rais'd unite.”

   “[...] Manfred, who concluded that he had either over-reached the good man, or that his firſt warmth had been but a tribute paid to appearance, was overjoyed at his ſudden turn [...]”

   “What is essentially beneficial to one party is materially detrimental to another: they have been enemies before, and may be enemies again: so that they are constantly endeavouring to overreach each other by some separate advantage, and serious causes of animosity and dissension are perpetually arising.”

noun

1. (also, countable, figuratively, uncountable)An act of extending or reaching over, especially if too far or too much; overextension.

   “It may not be much of a stretch to say that there had always been something comforting about the earlier periods of judicial activism. [...] Ideology aside, one may concede that such Supreme Court activism was far less frightening in its institutional overreach than a wholesale creation of new and public law by the judicial branch would be.”

   “[T]hat's something that I think everyone in the White House understood was danger. We thought it was necessary, But I'm sympathetic to folks who looked at it and said, this is looking like potential overreach.”

   “When American society finally collapses under the combined weight of massive foreign debt, military overreach, and internal decadence, [Gary] North and his followers at Tyler hoped to have a network of churches ready to step into the breach.”

   “[Damien] Chazelle and [Josh] Singer acknowledge both the impressive resourcefulness and faintly insane overreach of the space race; they were winging it, attempting the impossible with relatively primitive technology—"Boys making models out of balsa wood," Janet [Shearon Armstrong] calls them, after Director Of Flight Operations Deke Slayton (Kyle Chandler) cuts the radio feed during a mission gone wrong.”

   “Reshaping [of British Railways] was far from perfect. It was tainted by statistical overreach, the unconscious biases of its author, and by the political demands being placed upon the BRB by government.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Of a horse: an act of striking the heel of a forefoot with the toe of a hindfoot; an injury caused by this action.

   “The hunter's [i.e., hunting horse's] legs should be washed with warm water, carefully examined for thorns, overreaches, &c., and the legs should be rubbed dry, and well hand rubbed, by which means a free circulation of the blood will be promoted.”

   “Overreach.—This unpleasant noise, known also by the terms ‘clicking’, ‘overreach’, &c., arises from the toe of the hind foot knocking against the shoe of the fore foot.”