Definition of "overset"
overset
verb
third-person singular simple present oversets, present participle oversetting, simple past and past participle overset
(intransitive) To turn, or to be turned, over; to be upset; to capsize.
Quotations
[…] this Raft was so unweildy, and so overloaden, that after I was enter’d the little Cove, where I had landed the rest of my Goods, not being able to guide it so handily as I did the other, it overset, and threw me and all my Cargoe into the Water […]
1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], page 65
[…] the barge was hoisted out for the preservation of the admiral, who entered it accordingly; but all distinction of persons being now abolished, the seamen rushed into it in such crowds, that in a few moments it overset.
1766, Thomas Mortimer, A New History of England, London: J. Wilson and J. Fell, Volume 3, Part 13, “George II. A.D. 1727,” p. 596
(transitive) To knock over, capsize, overturn.
Quotations
In one little body / Thou counterfeit’st a bark, a sea, a wind; / For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, / Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, / Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs; / Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them, / Without a sudden calm, will overset / Thy tempest-tossed body.
c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene v]
We therefore truſted our ſelves to the Mercy of the Waves, and in about half an hour the Boat was over-ſet by a ſudden Flurry from the North.
1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Gives Some Account of Himself and Family, His First Inducements to Travel. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], part I (A Voyage to Lilliput), page 6
“Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner,” Miss Sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, “I never gave the existence of Captain Dobbin one single moment’s consideration.”
1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 6, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848
(obsolete) To overwhelm; to overthrow, defeat.
Quotations
There is also the wilfully ignorant professor, or him that is afraid to know more, for fear of the cross; he is for picking and chusing of truth, and loveth not to hazzard his all for that worthy name by which he would be called: when he is at any time overset by arguments, or awaknings of conscience, he uses to heal all, by, I was not brought up in this faith […]
1676, John Bunyan, The Strait Gate, or, Great Difficulty of Going to Heaven, London: Francis Smith, page 143
(transitive) To physically disturb (someone); to make nauseous, upset.
Quotations
He us’d all the Caution that he vvas able in letting me knovv a thing, vvhich it vvould have been a double Cruelty to have conceal’d; and yet it vvas too much for me; for as Grief had overſet me before, ſo did Joy overſet novv, and I fell into a much more dangerous Svvooning than I did at firſt, and it vvas not vvithout a great Difficulty that I vvas recover'd at all.
1722 (indicated as 1721), [Daniel Defoe], The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. […], London: […] W[illiam Rufus] Chetwood, […]; and T. Edling, […], published 1722, page 358
(archaic) To unbalance (a situation, state etc.); to confuse, to put into disarray.
Quotations
Thus has the Tailor-art, so to speak, overset itself, like most other things; changed its centre-of-gravity; whirled suddenly over from zenith to nadir.
1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Democracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, book III (The Modern Worker)
(transitive, rare) To translate.
Quotations
The thought and its expression—these are the two factors which must solve the problem; and it matters not how much we translate or overset—as the Germans felicitously say—so long as we go no deeper and do not grasp at what all literatures have in common.
2006, John David Pizer, The idea of world literature
Quotations
[Tobacco] is a good companion to one that converseth with dead men, for if one hath been poring long upon a book, or is toiled with the pen and stupefied with study, it quickeneth him, and dispels those clouds that usually overset the brain.
1646, James Howell, letter to Henry Hopkins dated 1 January, 1646 in Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ: The Familiar Letters of James Howell, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1907, Volume 4, p. 17