Override

How to spell override

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce override

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does override mean?

1. verbTo overrule, cancel, or take manual control over an automatic process or an earlier decision.
2. nounA device, control, or action that cancels or takes precedence over an automatic function.

Override in a sentence

• verb

  The manager can override the system's default settings when an order is urgent.

• noun

  The pilot reached for the manual override when the autopilot failed.

• verb

  A senior officer has the authority to override the standard approval limit.

• noun

  A security override let the engineer unlock the door during the power cut.

Where does override come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound built from over-, an ancient prefix meaning 'above' or 'beyond', and the verb 'ride', which descends from Old English 'ridan', meaning literally to sit on and control a horse. The image behind the word is one of riding straight over something, trampling or dominating it, and that physical sense of riding over an obstacle was recorded as early as the Old English period. Over the centuries the meaning shifted from the literal trampling of ground to the figurative sense of overruling a decision or taking control of a system, which became common from around the 1400s onward. The modern technical noun, as in a manual override on a machine, is a twentieth-century development tied to the rise of automatic controls. The spelling trap is subtle for fluent writers: it is one solid word with a doubled 'r' boundary where over meets ride, yet there is only a single 'r' after the 'e', so the temptation to write 'overrride' or to hyphenate it should be resisted.

How the word is built

• over- (above, beyond, on top of)
• ride (Old English ridan: to ride, to control)