Definition of "overswell" in Englisch

verb

1. (ambitransitive) To swell or rise above (something, especially the rim of a container, the sides of something hollow, etc.).

   • In some years the river overswells its banks, causing widespread flooding.
   • 1768, Ignatius Sancho, letter to Mr. M—, in Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, London: J. Nichols, 3rd edition, 1784, p. 13, […] the heart gratefully throbbing—overswelled with thankful sensations

2. (ambitransitive) To cause (something) to be too swollen or large; to become too swollen or large.

   • 1885, Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, The Burton Club, Volume 1, Translator’s Foreward, p. xvi, My annotations avoid only one subject, parallels of European folk-lore and fabliaux which, however interesting, would overswell the bulk of a book whose speciality is anthropology.

noun

1. An excessive or sudden increase or flood (of something).

   • 1983, Kenneth A. McClane, “From a Silent Center” in A Tree Beyond Telling, San Francisco: Black Scholar Press, p. 31, when no Jihad / opens the conceived / to distention, the reedy creek / to overswells / of mudwallow: