Overtaken

How to spell overtaken

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce overtaken

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does overtaken mean?

1. verbPast participle of overtake: to have caught up with and moved ahead of someone or something.
2. verbPast participle of overtake: to have been suddenly affected or overwhelmed by an emotion, condition, or event.

Overtaken in a sentence

• The lorry was overtaken by a faster car on the motorway.

• He was overtaken by a wave of exhaustion after the long shift.

• Their company has been overtaken by newer rivals in the market.

• The village was overtaken by the rising floodwater within hours.

Where does overtaken come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is the past participle of 'overtake', a compound formed in early Middle English from the native prefix 'over-', meaning 'above' or 'past', and the verb 'take'. The verb 'take' itself was borrowed into Old English from the Old Norse 'taka', meaning 'to grasp, seize, or lay hold of', brought over by Scandinavian settlers and gradually displacing the older English 'niman'. When the two parts were joined around the 1200s, 'overtake' first meant to come upon or catch someone by reaching beyond them, and from there it developed both the literal sense of drawing level and passing a person or vehicle and the figurative sense of an event suddenly seizing or overwhelming someone. The participle ending '-en' is the old strong form that survives in pairs like 'take/taken' and 'shake/shaken', and remembering that 'taken' already carries that double vowel and final 'en' is the key to spelling 'overtaken' correctly.

How the word is built

• over- (above, past, beyond)
• take (root, from Old Norse taka 'to grasp, seize')
• -en (past participle suffix)