Overrun

How to spell overrun

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce overrun

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does overrun mean?

1. verbTo spread over, invade, or exceed a limit such as a time or budget.
2. nounAn instance of exceeding an expected cost, quantity, or limit.

Overrun in a sentence

• verb

  Weeds began to overrun the neglected vegetable patch.

• noun

  The construction project finished with a costly overrun on the budget.

• verb

  The meeting tends to overrun its scheduled hour every Friday.

• noun

  The factory shipped the production overrun to a discount retailer.

Where does overrun come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, built from the Old English prefix 'ofer', meaning 'above, beyond, or across', and the verb 'rinnan', meaning 'to run or flow'. Both halves are firmly Germanic, related to similar words in Old Norse and Old High German. From its earliest uses around the time of Old English, 'overrun' carried the idea of running over or spreading across something, and from there it grew the military sense of an army flooding over and seizing territory, and the everyday sense of weeds or vermin spreading unchecked. The figurative meaning of exceeding a set limit, as in running past a budget or a deadline, developed much later. The spelling trap is purely mechanical: the prefix 'over' ends in 'r' and the root 'run' begins with 'r', so the joined word legitimately carries a double 'r', which writers often reduce to one.

How the word is built

• over- (above, beyond, across)
• run (from Old English rinnan: to run, flow)