Overflows

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To unintentionally spill beyond the confines of a receptacle or area, resulting in a surplus or excess
2. To go beyond the limit of a container causing contents to spill out
3. Occurs when something surpasses its boundary and pours over the edges

Etymology: "Overflows" is the third-person singular form of the verb "overflow," so it simply inflects the verb for a subject like "the river" or "the sink." The verb itself is built from two plain English parts: "over," meaning across or beyond, and "flow," meaning to move as a liquid does. Put together, the sense of moving past a limit is transparent from the parts. The verb reaches back to Old English as "oferflōwan," formed the same way, with "ofer" (over) joined to "flōwan" (flow). It passed into Middle English as "overflowen," keeping that literal sense of liquid running past its boundary. Its roots are thoroughly native, so it is one of the many English verbs that needed no borrowing from Latin or French to express the idea.

Synonyms: spills, floods, exceeds, overruns, saturates

Antonyms: holds, contains, fits, restricts, limits