Overcame

How to spell overcame

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce overcame

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does overcame mean?

1. verbSucceeded in dealing with or defeating something difficult; the past tense of 'overcome'.

Overcame in a sentence

• She overcame her fear of flying after months of practice.

• The team overcame an early setback to win the contract.

Where does overcame come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of 'overcome', a thoroughly native English word that goes back to the Old English ofercuman, formed by joining ofer, meaning 'above' or 'beyond', with cuman, meaning 'to come'. The literal sense was to come over or upon something, hence to get the upper hand on it, and from very early on it carried the figurative meaning of defeating an enemy or mastering a difficulty. The past-tense form follows the same strong-verb pattern as plain 'come' to 'came', so 'overcome' becomes 'overcame', with the vowel shifting rather than a regular -ed ending being added. That irregular vowel change is precisely the spelling point worth remembering: the ending is 'came', spelled with an 'a' and a silent final 'e', not 'overcomed'. The over- prefix has been productive in English for over a thousand years, giving us companions such as 'overtake', 'overrun', and 'overwhelm', all sharing the idea of moving above or past something.

How the word is built

• over- (above, beyond)
• came (past tense of 'come', from Old English cuman 'to come')