overreach

Definition

To reach above or beyond, especially to an excessive degree.

Etymology

The verb is from Middle English overrechen (“to rise above; to extend beyond or over; to encroach; to catch, overtake; to reach; to obtain wrongfully (?); to take up (a book) to revise it”) [and other forms], equivalent to over- + reach; the noun is derived from the verb or from the phrase to reach over.

Example Sentences

• "[...] 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."
• "The most eloquent manner of reading and of speaking, is the most easy of attainment, if sought for through the proper channel; for it is as simple as it is natural. But many who aim at it, fail by the very efforts adopted to gain it. They overreach the mark. They shoot too high. Instead of breathing forth their sentiments in the fervid glow of simple nature, which always warms, and animates, and interests the hearer, they work themselves up into a sort of frigid bombast, which chills and petrifies him."