overpass

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English

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A 1905 overpass over a road in Lewin Kłodzki, Poland

Etymology

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From over- +‎ pass.

Pronunciation

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  • (noun) IPA(key): /ˈəʊvə(ɹ)pæs/, /ˈəʊvə(ɹ)pɑːs/
  • (verb) IPA(key): /əʊvə(ɹ)ˈpæs/, /əʊvə(ɹ)ˈpɑːs/

Noun

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overpass (plural overpasses) (chiefly US, Canada, Philippines)

  1. A section of a road or path that crosses over an obstacle, especially another road, railway, etc.
    The homeless man had built a little shelter, complete with cook-stove, beneath a concrete overpass.
    • 2018 February, Robert Draper, “They are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet: Technology and Our Increasing Demand for Security have Put Us All under Surveillance. Is Privacy Becoming just a Memory?”, in National Geographic[1], Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 June 2018:
      By visible evidence, this Saturday morning is a comparatively placid one. Earlier in the week a young man had died after being stabbed in a flat, and from the overpass at Archway Road, darkly referred to as “suicide bridge,” another man had jumped to his death.

Synonyms

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  • flyover (UK, Hong Kong, Philippines)

Antonyms

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Translations

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See also

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Verb

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overpass (third-person singular simple present overpasses, present participle overpassing, simple past and past participle overpassed)

  1. To pass above something, as when flying or moving on a higher road.
    Gillian watched the overpassing shoppers on the second floor of the mall, as she relaxed in the bench on the ground floor.
  2. (transitive) To exceed, overstep, or transcend a limit, threshold, or goal.
    Marshall was really overpassing his authority when he ordered the security guards to fire their tasers at the trespassers.
    The precocious student had really overpassed her peers, and was reading books written for children several years older.
    • 1877, Aeschylus, translated by Robert Browning, The Agamemnon of Æschylus, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., [], →OCLC, page 31:
      Thou who didst fling on Troia's every tower / The o'er-roofing snare, that neither great thing might, / Nor any of the young ones, overpass / Captivity's great sweep-net— []
    • [1878], William Morris, The Decorative Arts: Their Relation to Modern Life and Progress [], London: Ellis and White, [], →OCLC, page 21:
      For as was the land, such was the art of it while folk yet troubled themselves about such things; it strove little to impress people either by pomp or ingenuity: not unseldom it fell into commonplace, rarely it rose into majesty; yet was it never oppressive, never a slave’s nightmare or an insolent boast: and at its best it had an inventiveness, an individuality, that grander styles have never overpassed: []
  3. (transitive) To disregard, skip, or miss something.

Synonyms

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Anagrams

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