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Overtop   Listen
verb
Overtop  v. t.  (past & past part. overtopped; pres. part. overtopping)  
1.
To rise above the top of; to exceed in height; to tower above. "To o'ertop old Pelion."
2.
To go beyond; to transcend; to transgress. "If kings presume to overtop the law by which they reign,... they are by law to be reduced into order."
3.
To make of less importance, or throw into the background, by superior excellence; to dwarf; to obscure.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overtop" Quotes from Famous Books



... cacao plants are six months old, the planter from this period must not be too fond of cleaning the plantation from grass and herbage, because they keep the ground cool; but all creeping, climbing plants, and such weeds as grow high enough to overtop the cacao, should be destroyed.' He gives the distance from tree to tree at 18 feet. I have long since been of opinion that it is of less consequence to clean the ground beneath the trees than to attend to the top-pruning of the shade trees, as well as to the cacao ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... perhaps, is the impression Aeschylus leaves on the minds of those who know him. They bear testimony to the fact that, however grand his style—like a Milton Carlylized in poetry—thought still seems to overtop it and to be struggling for expression through a ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have tried to overmaster other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... retorted Mrs Jane. "I should say, about as big as a field mouse. He thinks himself big enough to overtop all the elephants in creation. Marcus Welles! Oh, yes, I'll mark him ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... into life eternal: let thy heart be careful that thou go the right way to overpass this height, that thou mayest not miss of the delectable plains, and the pleasures that are above. Now, there is nothing so high, as to overtop this height; but Jacob's ladder, and that can do it: that ladder, when the foot thereof doth stand upon the earth, reacheth with its top to the gate of heaven. This is the ladder by which angels ascend thither: and this is the ladder by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... plant, like most plants that grow on the close-cropped sheep-walks, whose safety lies in their power to root themselves and live very close to the surface, yet must ever strive to lift its flowers into the unobstructed light and air and to overtop or get away from its crowding neighbours. On one side of the road, where the turf had been cut by the spade in a sharp line, the plant had found a rare opportunity to get space and light and had thrust out such a multitude of bowering sprays, projecting them beyond the turf, ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... that we were obliged to quit the table precipitately. I laid myself down at once, feeling unable to move about, or even to drag myself on deck to admire the magnificent spectacle of nature. The waves frequently ran so high as to overtop the flue of our stove, and from time to time whole streams of water poured into ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... heart's comment to be framed in words. Below, all their earthward-looking branches are sapless and shattered, splintered by the weight of many winters' snows; above, they are still green and full of life, but their summits overtop all the deciduous trees around them, and in their companionship with heaven they are alone. On these the lightning loves to fall. One such Mr. Bernard saw,—or rather, what had been one such; for the bolt had torn the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... Dioscorea villosa, the Climbing Rose, (Rosa setigera,) Celastrus scandens, remarkable for its beautiful red fruits, Clematis Virginiana, Polygonum, Convolvulus, and other vines, these weedy herbs attempt to overtop ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... time than to offend yourself by giving him so unmanly a satisfaction. You have braved him in your heat and anger, and you would flatter and appease him in your cooler and better sense; and by that means lay yourself lower and at his feet, whom before you pretended to overtop. I do not find anything a gentleman can say so vicious in him as unsaying what he has said is infamous, when to unsay it is authoritatively extracted from him; forasmuch as obstinacy is more excusable ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... is not in the least against it, for so it ought to be: and the "stock" company that plays its parts plays them well. The father is perhaps rather excessively foolish and unnatural, but then he almost had to be. The wicked and ugly stepmother tops, but does not overtop, her part, and her punishment is not commonplace. Gracieuse herself deserves her name, not only "by her comely face and by her fair bodie," but by her good but not oppressive wits, and her amiable but not faultless disposition. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... and the child I bore him? Shall I see them presently? Will they crush me with their reproaches? And—have my nerves broken down?—Is it fancy, or does that girl's pale face, with warning in her eyes, float between me and the wall? Well, I will drink to her, for her mind could even overtop my own. She was, at least, my equal, and I have driven her mad! Let ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... of the American merchant marine is such as to call for immediate remedial action by the Congress. It is discreditable to us as a Nation that our merchant marine should be utterly insignificant in comparison to that of other nations which we overtop in other forms of business. We should not longer submit to conditions under which only a trifling portion of our great commerce is carried in our own ships. To remedy this state of things would not .merely serve to build up our shipping interests, but it would also ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... of boat-hooks, so that the little barque should not dash against the hull of the bigger one, now she was so loaded up—a collision would have insured destruction to all in her, the huge billows of the Southern Ocean rolling in at intervals, and raising her so high aloft as to overtop the ship sometimes, and again carrying her down right under the Esmeralda's counter, thus making her run the risk of being stove ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... crest it poured Its spreading leaves and tendrils fine, And hung a-bloom in the morning shine. "A hundred years," the palm tree sighed.— "And I," the saucy gourd replied, "Am at the most a hundred hours, And overtop ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... that I awaited the result with confidence would not be at all true. Quite the contrary. Fear and trembling were far more the characteristics of my mind in that hour. Had I been allowed more time to build my cairn—time to have made it high enough to overtop the waves, and firm enough to resist them, I should have felt less apprehension. I had no fear that the signal-staff would give way. It had been well proved, for there had it stood defying the storm as long as I could remember. It was my ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... Grand Constable gave with the king's permission in the king's own rose garden, the magnificent mascarado in the Italian manner, to which all who were associated with the court were summoned. This revelry which began at sunset was intended to overtop all possible courtly ceremonials in the splendour of its equipment, the lavishness of its display, the richness ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... 'terrible hazard;' but when I go abroad and become infected by the general enthusiasm, I pluck up gaiety of spirit, and whisper to myself, 'True, but it may be an enormous gain.' To get the left bank of the Rhine is a trifle; but to check in our next neighbour a growth which a few years hence would overtop us,—that is no trifle. And, be the gain worth the hazard or not, could the Emperor, could any Government likely to hold its own for a week, have declined to take the chance of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... altars. And lo! from Tenedos, over the placid depths (I shudder as I recall) two snakes in enormous coils press down the sea and advance together to the shore; their breasts rise through the surge, and their blood-red crests overtop the waves; the rest trails through the main behind and wreathes back in voluminous curves; the brine gurgles and foams. And now they gained the fields, while their bloodshot eyes blazed with fire, and their tongues lapped ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... particular spot. If the eye is drawn with equal force to several different spots, then we reproach the painter for having "scattered" the interest of the picture. Similarly with the novel. A novel must have one, two, or three figures that easily overtop the rest. These figures must be in the foreground, and the rest in the middle-distance or ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... there is a touch of comedy behind it. Though her words have the fire, the devotion, the abandon of Heloise, they leave a certain sense of disproportion. One is inclined to wonder if they do not overtop ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... the line Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work, Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age, He builds beneath the waters, till, at last, His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check The long wave rolling from the southern pole To break upon Japan. Thou bid'st the fires, That smoulder under ocean, heave on high The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks, A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird. The ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... of the several Words, and range them in their proper Order, you will find they amount to MDCXVVVII, or 1627, the Year in which the Medal was stamped: For as some of the Letters distinguish themselves from the rest, and overtop their Fellows, they are to be considered in a double Capacity, both as Letters and as Figures. Your laborious German Wits will turn over a whole Dictionary for one of these ingenious Devices. A Man would think they were searching after an apt classical Term, but instead of that they ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... which add slowly the chocolate-milk, turning steadily one way. When quite mixed, pass the whole through a search, fill your cups, and, if you have not a regular bain-marie, a flat sauce-pan will do, filled to a proper height, so as not to overtop the creams, and which must continue boiling a quarter of an hour. For a change, instead of the chocolate, boil the milk with a pod of vanille broken in pieces, or any ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... graveyard is set apart as a sort of potter's-field, where negroes, Indians, and stranger-paupers are buried. This region is bordered by a little jungle of poke-berry and elder-bushes, sumachs and brambles, so dense and thrifty that they overtop and hide the fence; and there is a tradition among the school-boys, that somewhere in the copse there is a black-snake hole, the abode of an enormous monster, upon whom no one, however, has ever happened to set eyes. Here, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... noose, or to deaden the effect of the shock by lowering stuffed sacks or other buffer material between it and the wall. At another point, in place of the shed, there is rolled forward a lofty construction like a tower built in several stories. When this approaches the wall it will overtop it, and a drawbridge with grappling irons may be dropped upon the parapet. Elsewhere there is mining and countermining. From a safer distance the artillery of the time is hurling its formidable missiles. ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... am fond of good horses; and, as I only keep a pair, I have the best. There is a certain degree of pretension in four horses, I do not much like—it appears as if you wished to overtop ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... the Swiftwater in the early Spring. In a shallow pool, which the drought of summer will soon change into dry land, you see the pale-green shoots of a little plant thrusting themselves up between the pebbles, and just beginning to overtop the falling water. You pluck a leaf of it as you turn out of the stream to find a comfortable place for lunch, and, rolling it between your fingers to see whether it smells like a good salad for your bread and cheese, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... when the wit of Aristophanes sought to overtop the stately lines of AEschylus; Praxiteles outdid Ictinus; and wayside words uttered by Socrates were to outlast ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... of the several words, and range them in their proper order, you will find they amount to MDCXVVVII, or 1627, the year in which the medal was stamped: for as some of the letters distinguish themselves from the rest, and overtop their fellows, they are to be considered in a double capacity, both as letters and as figures. Your laborious German wits will turn over a whole dictionary for one of these ingenious devices. A man would think they were searching after an apt classical term, but ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... Thus, it is urged, that, in every department of human knowledge, we transcend the most splendid acquirements of the ancients, and therefore that it is so much time wasted which we devote towards keeping up an acquaintance with antiquity. But how is it that we so far overtop the ancients? Simply by preserving our conscious connection with them, just as manhood towers above childhood through the remembered experiences of childhood. As an evidence of this, we need only note ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... rendered conspicuous by the absence of small vegetation, but Nelson writes that in the vicinity of Gallego, Chihuahua, they can be readily distinguished at a distance because of a growth of weeds and small bushes over their summits, which overtop the grass. In the vicinity of Albuquerque, N. Mex., Bailey reports (and this was recently confirmed by Vorhies) that the mounds about the holes of spectabilis are often hardly noticeable. Hollister writes that in the yellow-pine forests of the Gallina Mountains the burrows are usually under the ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor

... whether one gets passage depends a little on how many have gone that road before, and much on one's own powers. The passes are steep and windy ridges, though not the highest. By two and three thousand feet the snow-caps overtop them. It is even possible to win through the Sierras without having passed above timber-line, but ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... published in the time of {567} Queen Elizabeth. I fear his memory deceived him, or why should a man of his sound learning afterwards incline to vail bonnet to the dogmatist Warburton? whose knowledge of dogs, by the way, must have been marvellously small, or he could never have imagined them to overtop one another in a horizontal course. Overrun, overshoot, overslip, are terms in hunting, overtop never; except perchance in the vocabulary of the wild huntsman of the Alps. Trash occurs as a verb in the sense above given, Act I. Sc. 2. of the Tempest: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various

... would be in the heart of a torrent, for the two rivers would be one. So instead of going to school, all the boys had gone to look, and the master followed them. Nor was the fear without foundation; for the stream was still rising, and a foot more would overtop the ground between it and ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... erections of a superstitious age which were so frequently added to a mediaeval building; though whether as a mere decoration, or with greater significance, authorities do not seem to agree. The two uncompleted square towers overtop all, pierced by the two great lancets, which, with respect to mere proportions, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... around them, and are all picturesquely placed along broad streets and lanes. In front of the large bright windows of many of the houses, beyond the kitchen gardens, dark green poplars and acacias with their delicate pale verdure and scented white blossoms overtop the houses, and beside them grow flaunting yellow sunflowers, creepers, and grape vines. In the broad open square are three shops where drapery, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, locust beans and gingerbreads are sold; ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... space, comparatively with the inclosures in its vicinity, until it reached the village. It was surrounded by high stone walls, which every now and then the dark spiral forms of a cypress or a cedar would overtop, and in the more distant and elevated part rose a tall palm tree, bending its graceful and languid head, on which the sunbeam glittered. It was the first palm that Tancred had ever seen, and his heart throbbed as he beheld ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... sugar in proportion to population than any other nation of the world. The total consumption last year was not less than 2,500,000 tons. This is enough to make a pyramid that would overtop the tallest pyramid of Egyptian fame. Of this total, 2,200,000 tons came from foreign countries, the Spanish possessions and Hawaii sending about twenty-five per cent. Five years earlier, when our imports were less by half a million tons, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... Cneius, and give him pain. Each for his part strives his utmost to find out faults in his neighbor and to put him in the pillory, particularly if his antagonist is held the greater man, or is likely to overtop him. Listen to the girls at the well, to the women at the spindle; no one is sure of applause who cannot tell some evil of the other men or women. Who cares to listen to his neighbor's praises? The man ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Flying out of the sky—from the north, south, east and west—they came, bringing cheeses. These they dropped down around him, until the piles of the round masses threatened first to enclose him as with a wall, and then to overtop him. There were the red balls from Edam, the pink and yellow spheres from Gouda, and the gray loaf-shaped ones from Leyden. Down through the vista of sand, in the pine woods, he looked, and oh, ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... trees' of California, there is a cedar four hundred and eighty feet in height. It would overtop the Houses of Parliament, and even the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The trunk at the surface of the ground was one hundred and twenty feet in circumference, and the concentric layers of the wood disclosed an age of ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... slowly along a garden path enjoying the contrast with the heat, glare, and noise of the day. The central one was a tall, slender lady, with a light shawl hung round her shoulders. On one side was a youth who had begun to overtop her, on the other a girl of shorter and sturdier mould, who only reached ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... guard for the garden. Stand this hollyhock phalanx up against a wall like naughty boys, close to the house, or by an old fence. They are so tall that they must be in the background. They grace it. Otherwise they would overtop and shadow the other garden plants. If there is an old ash pile, an old dump or anything else unsightly, plant something tall before it. Hollyhocks would not do for this, since their foliage is too ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw

... most of the gates of Rome you have generally half-an-hour's progress through winding lanes, many of which are hardly less charming than the open meadows. On foot the walls and high hedges would vex you and spoil your walk; but in the saddle you generally overtop them, to an endless peopling of the minor vision. Yet a Roman wall in the springtime is for that matter almost as interesting as anything it conceals. Crumbling grain by grain, coloured and mottled to a hundred tones by sun and ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... beautiful! How inspiring for the time that looks upon its completion and for the ages that shall mark it hereafter! If our country and France, as we hope, may go on in the enlargement and advancement of a glorious civilization, we may feel sure that if our descendants shall overtop us in wealth, in strength, in art, and equal us in love of liberty, they will not say that this was not a worthy triumph for the age in which we live [applause]; and if, unhappily, malign influences ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... hands for silence, but the tumult only grew. 'Just a moment. I want to tell you men—here's a friend of yours—he's a new-comer, but he looks just your kind! Give him a hearing.' She strained her voice to overtop the ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... or General Reserve." Vall told him. "This thing's going to have overtop priority ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... one of your propositions—wholly wrong,' cried the other. 'The party that will send you in won't want to be bribed, and they'll be proud of a man who doesn't overtop them with his money. You don't need the big families, for you'll beat them. Your religion is the right one, for it will give you the Priests; and your politics shall be Repeal, and it will give you the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... too, are numerous, and the scene in many places is covered with mansanita underwood, a graceful and beautiful shrub. The trees and shrubbery, however, are not so thickly planted as to intercept the view, and the ground undulates so much that occasionally we overtop them, and obtain a glimpse of the wide vale before us. Over the whole landscape there is a golden sunny haze, that enriches while it softens every object, and the balmy atmosphere is laden with the sweet perfume called forth by ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... quake? Why should I fear him more than other spirits Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords Before the gates round which I linger oft In twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those Gardens which are my just inheritance, Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls, And the immortal trees which overtop The cherubim-defended battlements? I shrink not from these, the fire-arm'd angels; Why should I quail from him who now approaches? Yet he seems mightier far than them, nor less Beauteous; and yet not all as beautiful As he hath ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... to overtop you, mon ami," laughed Lorimer with a lazy shrug. "By Jove, I am sleepy, Errington, old boy; are we never going to bed? It's no good waiting till ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... himself, have excelled states in their budgets and loomed bigger than whole commonwealths in their influence over the lives and fortunes of entire communities of men. Centralized business has built up vast structures of organization and equipment which overtop all states and seem to have no match or competitor ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... friend." Not indeed that the men themselves thought any irony in those speeches: it was natural, no doubt, that they should utter such things in all seriousness; but what they say is interpreted into irony by the subsequent events. And when such a shallow idealist as Brutus is made to overtop and outshine the greatest practical genius the world ever saw, what is it but a refined and subtile irony at work on a much larger scale, and diffusing itself, secretly, it may be, but not the less vitally, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... of Universology, as so delightfully unfolded by Mr. ANDREWS, is one that must ere long overtop and engulf all others, seeing that it is, of itself, the science which embodies and contains all. It teaches that the universe exists in time and space—a fact never discovered till now—or that, rather, it exists in space and time, as the two negative containers ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... Paul Rycaut by name, has left a description of this encampment as he saw it on his visit a short time afterwards. 'The tents were raised on a small hill, and about 2000 in number, ranged at that time without order, only the Grand Signior's seemed to be in the midst to overtop all the rest, well worthy observation, costing (as was reported) 180,000 dollars, richly embroidered in the inside with gold. Within the walls of this tent (as I may so call them) were all sorts of offices belonging to the Seraglio, apartments ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... and ever my creed that it is a man's best business to be in love as much and as often as he can, and I answered him according to my fancy. "I should scorn myself if I did not overtop every conceited fancy that lover has ever sighed or sung ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... up rose the faded drapery. An interval of a moment succeeded, during which half of a large mountain was removed from the scenery, and a piece of forest shoved up to the ambitious wood that had been aspiring to overtop the Alps. At length a young lady, whom I had just seen butchered in a most horrid manner by a villain, came from the side of the stage with a smile, which, while it displayed her white teeth, wrought the rouge upon her face into very perceptible corrugations, and made a lowly courtesy. She walked ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... is ever the ripest, richest and best, and Homer and Shakespeare overtop all our modern writers as the Alps overshadow the hills lying around their feet. What modern preacher can compare in eloquence and power with Paul and Isaiah? Nature is ever full of new wonders, and yet ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden

... and building a flight of steps, supported on a squinch arch, down to what then became the lower chapel. Much battered during the sieges of the palace, it was restored and reconsecrated in 1411 and a century later the Gothic upper apse was added, whose external walls overtop the old nave. In consequence of these modifications the lower chapel has a Gothic nave and a Romanesque apse, whereas the upper chapel has a Gothic apse and a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... spy-in-the-sky. V. be high &c adj.; tower, soar, command; hover, hover over, fly over; orbit, be in orbit; cap, culminate; overhang, hang over, impend, beetle, bestride, ride, mount; perch, surmount; cover &c 223; overtop &c (be superior) 33; stand on tiptoe. become high &c adj.; grow higher, grow taller; upgrow^; rise &c (ascend) 305; send into orbit. render high &c adj.; heighten &c (elevate) 307. Adj. high, elevated, eminent, exalted, lofty, tall; gigantic &c (big) 192; Patagonian; towering, beetling, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... and friendship and association with others is one of the great needs and pleasures of life and one of the chief means of training the higher side of us. Unless His method changes we may surely hope that He will do something similar hereafter, for love is the plant that must overtop all others in the ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... state. There is a springy, exultant vitality in the bearing of the graceful figure, and the light poise of the head, while in the complexion there is a tender softness and a freshness of tints belonging only to the dewy morning of life. The princeliness of youth, the glow of joy and hope overtop and outshine the crown which she wears as lightly as though it were a May-queen's Coronal of roses; and the dignity of simple girlish purity envelops her more royally than velvet and ermine. The eyes have the softness of morning skies and spring violets, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... not sufficiently a thoroughfare to possess one of those monstrosities, a modern American tavern, or a structure whose roof should overtop that of all its neighbours. Still its inns were of respectable size, well piazzaed, to use a word of our own invention, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... I was seated, now some ten days past, Beneath those lofty firs, that overtop Their ancient neighbour, the old steeple-tower, 20 The Vicar from his gloomy house hard by [A] Came forth to greet me; and when he had asked, "How fares Joanna, that wild-hearted Maid! And when will she return to us?" he paused; And, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... out the spot for our house, we had to get a surveyor to go before us and cut a path through the dense underbrush that was laced together in a general network of boughs and leaves, and grew so high as to overtop our heads. Where the house stands, four or five great old oaks and chestnuts had to be cut away to let it in; and now it stands on the bank of the river, the edges of which are still overhung with old forest-trees, chestnuts and oaks, ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... dog-snake's dread abode. Noxious things of earth and air, Get you hence, for I prepare To flaunt my beauty in the sun When all beside me are undone. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Pan shall see The surge of my virginity Overtop the sobered glade. Luminous and unafraid Near his sacred oak I'll spread Lures to tempt him from his bed: His couch, his lair his form shall be By none but by the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... exhilarating air and a rich herbage on which browse countless herds of cattle, horses, and flocks of sheep. The grass grows tall, and miles upon miles of rich scarlet, white, or yellow flowers mingle with or overtop it. Beds of thistles, in which the cattle completely hide themselves, stretch away for leagues and leagues, and present an almost unbroken sheet of purple flowers. So vast are these thistle- beds that ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... art which his elder years have can draw no other vapor out of these dissolutions than heavy, secret, and sad sighs. He shall find nothing remaining but those sorrows which grow up after our fast-springing youth, overtake it when it is at a stand, and overtop it utterly when it begins to wither; insomuch as, looking back from the very instant time, and from our now being, the poor, diseased, and captive creature hath as little sense of all his former miseries and pains as he that is most blest, in common opinion, hath of his forepast pleasures ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... has cost us Joe! He is promoted from the farm to the mansion-house, two miles off; there he cleans shoes, rubs knives, and runs on errands, and is, as his mother expresses it, 'a sort of 'prentice to the footman.' I should not wonder if Joe, some day or other, should overtop the footman, and rise to be butler; and his splendid prospects must be our consolation for the loss of this great favourite. In ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... must look back on the result with unmixed astonishment and delight. Temperance, and finance—which is but another name for the labor movement—and woman's rights, are three radical questions which overtop all others in value and importance. Woman's claim for the ballot-box has had a much wider influence than merely to protect woman. Universal suffrage is itself in danger. Scholars dread it; social science and journalists attack it. The discussion of woman's claim has done much to reveal this ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... said, "arise! I slay thee not! Who am I, that I should judge thy crime, that, with mine own, doth overtop all earthly judgment?" ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... letters, dated September 9, 1630, addressed to "The Honourable the Governor of the Castle of Edinburgh," and signed by "O Cromwell," contains this passage—"The ministers in England are supported, and have liberty to preach the gospell, though not to raile, nor under pretence thereof to overtop the civill power, or debase it as they please. No man hath been troubled in England or Ireland for preaching the gospell, nor has any minister been molested in Scotland since the coming of the army hither. The speaking ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... that we ought not to prevent another? Nor is Aristotle so good a commonwealths man for deriding the invention of Phaleas as in recollecting himself, where he says that democracies, when a less part of their citizens overtop the rest in wealth, degenerate into oligarchies and principalities; and, which comes nearer to the present purpose, that the greater part of the nobility of Tarentum coming accidentally to be ruined, the government of the few ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... sang in chorus until bedtime. "Now then, boys," cried I, "for a huge camp-fire, for it will be cold tonight!" We all scattered in the woods, and every man returned with a log, and soon the leaping blaze seemed to overtop the pines. We all lay around, with our feet to the fire, and soon sank ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... is remarkable, not only for its frank statement of the terms on which England and the Continent might have peace, but also because it discloses the rank undergrowth of pride and ambition that is beginning to overtop his reasoning faculties. Even before he has heard the news of Moreau's great victory of Hohenlinden, he equates the military strength of France with that of the rest of Europe: nay, he claims without a shadow of doubt the mastery of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... society, [Footnote: "Homogeneous society"—a society or community all of whose parts and members have like purposes and interests.] seeking the same national ends and animated by the same national ideals, will overtop all other advantages. The organization of the selected Army fuses the thousand separate elements making up the United States into one steel-hard mass. Men of the North, South, East, and West meet and mingle, and on the anvil of war become citizens worthy of the ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... roofing of boards and hides, beneath which they could work their battering-rams with impunity. To co-operate with this unwieldy and bulky instrument, which, from its shape and covering, they called a "sow," movable scaffolds had been constructed, of such a height as to overtop the walls, from which they proposed to storm the town; and, instead of a single vessel, as on the former occasion, a squadron of ships, with their top castles manned by picked bodies of archers, and their armed boats slung mast high, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... thickness may have been something like this amount. So deep was it that, although almost all the people of these towns survived, it did not seem to them worth while to undertake to excavate their dwelling places. At Pompeii the covering did not overtop the higher of the low houses. An amount of labour which may be estimated at not over one thirtieth of the value, or at least the cost which had been incurred in building the city, would have restored it to a perfectly inhabitable ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... Honduras," the superintendent of which was a native youth who had spent a year or two at Chapultepec. Against it lean barefooted, anemic "soldiers" in misfit overalls, armed with musket and bayonet that overtop them in height. The main post-office of the republic is an ancient adobe hovel, in the cobwebbed recesses of which squat a few stupid fellows waiting for the mule-back mail-train to arrive that they may ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... people. The minister will inspire his formative citizens with good portrayals of statesmen, educators, inventors, reformers, discoverers, pioneers, and philanthropists. He will charm them into greatness at the very time when a boy's ideals overtop ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... emotions utterly unknown and foreign to the followers of Buddhism in Ceylon. Yet, strange to tell, under all the icy coldness of this barren system there burns below the unextinguished fires of another and a darker superstition, whose flames overtop the icy summits of the Buddhist philosophy, and excite a deeper and more reverential awe in the imagination of the Singhalese. As the Hindus in process of time superadded to their exalted conceptions ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... Arabella,—well mayest thou be astonished—to the bride it came, even in the joy of the bridal hour (more animated). I am a woman, but I feel the nobleness of my blood. I cannot bear to see these proud Dorias thus overtop our family. The good old Andreas—it is a pleasure to esteem him. He may indeed, unenvied, bear the ducal dignity; but Gianettino is his nephew—his heir—and Gianettino has a proud and wicked heart. Genoa trembles before him, and Fiesco (much ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... lately a ball was given; yet, deducting for all these improvements, which are certainly much less offensive than you could imagine, it is a very sweet ruin, standing so enclosed in wood, which the towers overtop, that you cannot know that it is not in a state of natural desolation till you are close to it. The opposite bank of the Tweed is steep and woody, but unfortunately many of the trees are firs. The old woman followed us after ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... goods, to secure them from whatever might happen. Where I was I yet knew not; whether on the continent or on an island, whether inhabited or not inhabited, whether in danger of wild beasts or not. There was a hill not above a mile from me, which rose up very steep and high, and which seemed to overtop some other hills which, lay as in a ridge from it northward: I took out one of the fowling-pieces, and one of the pistols, and an horn of powder, and thus armed I travelled for discovery up to the top of that hill, where, after I had with great labour and difficulty got to the top, I ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... comprehensive anathema. His reputation grew amain, both in his native section and in the state at large. Before the autumn his election to the House of Delegates, which in April seemed so great a thing, began to assume the appearance of a trifle in his fortunes. He would overtop that, and how highly no man was prepared to say. Through all the clashing of shields, through Republican attack and Federalist resistance, through the clamour over Hamilton's death, the denunciation and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... a word in her life, but that, that, sir, seems to be where you have missed it. Now look here," he went on, kindling in spite of himself, "I respect any man who has grounds—discoverable grounds—for respecting himself, and if you are a man, then 'sir' won't overtop you any." ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... changes its direction causing it to go down into the funnel-shaped outer casing of the stack. Here, the heavy embers and cinders are collected and prevented from directly discharging into the countryside as dangerous firebrands. Wire netting is stretched overtop of the deflecting cone to catch the lighter, more volatile embers which may defy the action of the cone. The term "bonnet stack" results from the fact that this netting is similar in shape to a lady's bonnet. The cinders thus accumulated in the stack's hopper could be emptied ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White

... discern any solidity or roundness in them; the lights and shades of solid form are both equally lost in the blue of the atmosphere, and the mountain tells only as a flat, sharp-edged film, of which multitudes intersect and overtop one another, separated by the greater faintness of the retiring masses. This is the most simple and easily imitated arrangement possible, and yet, both in nature and art, it expresses distance and size in a way otherwise quite ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... towards the island, and before it became too dark to observe, in the early twilight one could see the wind-lashed waters of the bay begin to heap themselves into broken and irregular waves, each striving to overtop the other in their plunge upon the city. They broke, indeed, into the back door of the city, and then, with a suddenness that seemed to rock the very foundations of the earth, the wind struck us, in ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... hills. Few of them are much over 150 feet high, large as they often loom in the deceiving light of the Soudan. Many are but 50 feet in height, and there are regular, peaky, and prettily-shaped little mountain ranges, the summits of which overtop the plain but five to ten yards. Such hills children might build in play by the sea-shore. Surgham was quite a big one, and the signallers soon took possession of it, flagging and "helioing" back ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... whereby He sets such bounds to the greatest mountains, that ye see they fall not upon the vallies, albeit they overtop them. The Lord hath set bounds to the great kings in the world which they could not pass, when they have set themselves against the Lord's people. We may see an example of this in Sennacherib. "Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... appeared from the street, and the doctor made rueful allusions to convents and prisons, and was not half satisfied to leave his dear little Bessie there. The morning sun had gone off the grass. The walls were immensely lofty—the tallest trees did not overtop them. There was a weedy, weak fountain, a damp grotto, and two shrines with white images of the Blessed ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... his match in size; here was one against whom his veils were powerless; here, too, was a creature who melted from his grasp when he thought to seize and twist him. What, then, remained for him to do? This only: to overtop him and smother him by casting himself down upon him ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... movement of the ocean. Each mighty sea, all phosphorescent and glowing with the tiny lights of myriads of animalculae, threatened to overwhelm us with a deluge of fire. Higher and higher, thinner and thinner, the crest grew as it began to curve and overtop preparatory to breaking, until with a roar it fell over the bulwarks, a mass of soft glowing light and tons of water which sent the sailors sprawling in all directions and left in each nook and cranny little specks of light ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... demonstration, of volitions and knowledges, of tangible proofs and causalities, of positive and logical effects of reason, of all outward and material processes, man is supreme; while in that finer, higher, more subtile sphere of intuitions, loves, faiths, spiritual convictions, which overtop our actual life, and lead it up from grossness to glory, woman is the oracle and priestess. In the basic qualities of our nature man is stronger—woman, in those which, in grace, beauty, and sweetness, taper ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... side of the avenue and her head was in the air. She had long since ceased to carry her spine in a tubercular droop and when she chose she could draw her body up until it seemed to elongate like the neck of a giraffe, and overtop Mortimer or whoever happened to ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have tried to overmaster other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was small, budding ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... through the tact with which it invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the public departments; and the public condition had risen ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... walls, built of alternate layers of stone and timber, were forty feet in thickness, and could neither be burnt nor driven in with the ram. The town could be taken only with the help of an agger—a bank of turf and fagots raised against the wall of sufficient height to overtop the fortifications. The weather was cold and wet, but the legions worked with such a will that in twenty-five days they had raised their bank at last, a hundred yards in width and eighty feet high. As the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... even umbrella, if he can get hold of one. Ordinarily, the bogey man has a bow with the arrow strung. Occasionally a farmer seeks to scare birds by means of clappers which he places in the hands of a child or an old man who sits in a rough shelter raised high enough to overtop the rice. Now and then there is a clapper connected with a string to the farm-house. I have also seen a row of bamboos carried across a paddy field with a square piece of wood hanging loosely against ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... This is life, Spent in a feverish chase for selfish ends, Which has no virtue to redeem its toil, But one long, stagnant hope to raise the self. The miser's life to this seems sweet and fair; Better to pile the glittering coin, than seek To overtop our brothers and our loves. Merit in this? Where lies it, though thy name Ring over distant lands, meeting the wind Even on the extremest verge of the wide world? Merit in this? Better be hurled abroad On the vast whirling ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... surface-scratchings of the heart soil there had sprung up a mixed growth in which the tares of self-righteousness began presently to overtop the good grain of humility. One must not be too exacting. If the world were not all good, neither was it all bad; at all events, it was the part of wisdom to make the magnanimous best of it, and to be thankful that the day-star of reason had at last arisen for one's self. At ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... the South. People may believe it or not. People may say it may be of practical use, or not. I shall overhaul my terminologies, and, with the "metaphysical aid" of my cousin, fit it with a scientific name which shall overtop all the ologies. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... duke's own surgeon. Formal salutations were exchanged between the seconds. The duelling swords were examined, and found to be of the same length. There was no difficulty in choosing the ground, as there was an open space in the centre of the little wood, and the sun had not risen high enough to overtop the trees. As, therefore, the glade was in shade, there was no advantage, in point of ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... the geologist assures us that when the cold of the Glacial Age was at its maximum glaciers streamed down from all the mountains of Scotland, Wales, and Northern England; that the ice was thick enough to overtop all the smaller hills, and on the plains it united in one great sea of ice some thousands of feet in thickness, that it stretched as far south as the latitude of London, England. But that to the west the ice streamed out across, the Irish Sea, the islands to the west ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... war-ravaged country—Michael Strogoff felt within himself a fierce desire to dash on across the steppe, to accomplish the distance which separated him from Irkutsk as the crow would fly it, to be an eagle that he might overtop all obstacles, to be a hurricane that he might sweep through the air at a hundred versts an hour, and to be at last face to face with the Grand Duke, and to exclaim: "Your highness, from his ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... single-handed, a match for the world,—which is saying a good deal, the world being, like Briareus, a very many-handed gentleman,—but, to be so, you must stand alone. Recollect that the scurvy buildings about St. Peter's almost seem to overtop itself." ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... so too, they were able to have inform'd them how absurd it was to suppose either the one or the other (viz.) (1.) that they could build up to Heaven, or (2.) that they could build firm enough to resist, or high enough to overtop the Waters, supposing such another Flood should happen; I would rather think it was only that they intended to build a most glorious and magnificent City, where they might all inhabit together; and that this Tower was to be built for Ornament and also for Strength, or as above, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... eyes steadily fixed on some invisible realm. When he spoke it was with a firm, natural, unshaken accent. "Why, yes, I think it very likely that I am being fooled all the time. But I don't think it matters the least bit in the world beside the fact that I love you. That's big enough to overtop ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... from a Conquest, And puts an awful Gloom upon our Joy; I fear his Grief will overtop his Reason; A Lover weeps with more than common Pain. Nor flows his greatest Sorrow at his Eyes: His Grief is inward, and his Heart sheds Tears, And in his Soul he feels the pointed Woe, When he beholds the lovely Object ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... life around us—of common life—of everyday events, and the common scenes which Nature has prepared on every side, are full of interest, full of means of gratifying a taste formed or cultivated to rational enjoyment. The Hymmalayen mountains may overtop the Andes, and the Amazon bear more water to the sea than the Susquehanna, but it follows not thence that the combination of scenery—points of beauty to be associated with the eye—are less attractive in the latter than in the former; and though thousands may tread, may ride, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various

... torture of tomorrow! Oh, Agnes, the agony of success to a nervous, sensitive man; the dismal apprehension that fills his life and gives each victory a voice to cry out "Hear, hear! Bravo, bravo, bravo! But this is to be your last—you'll never overtop it!" Ha, yes! I soon found out the weak spot in my armour—the need of constant encouragement, constant reminder of my powers; [taking her hand] the need of that subtle sympathy which a sacrificing, unselfish woman ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero

... extraordinary powers of mind, and very rare sensibilities of heart. She must surely be allowed to take her place among the female writers of England as a poetess of no ordinary rank; and if she does not already overtop them all, may she one day stand forth as the queen of that select and immortal sisterhood! It is in her power to do so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... batophobia[obs3]. satellite, spy-in-the-sky. V. be high &c. adj.; tower, soar, command; hover, hover over, fly over;orbit, be in orbit; cap, culminate; overhang, hang over, impend, beetle, bestride, ride, mount; perch, surmount; cover &c. 223; overtop &c. (be superior) 33; stand on tiptoe. become high &c. adj.; grow higher, grow taller; upgrow[obs3]; rise &c. (ascend) 305;send into orbit. render high &c. adj.; heighten &c. (elevate) 307. Adj. high, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... up from his hassock with difficulty, and confronting her: "Do I look like a man who would dare to make fun of you? I am half a head shorter than you, and in moral grandeur you overtop me so that I would always have to wear a high hat when I was ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... to be expected from the indolent character of the Indians, it being entirely entrusted to the squaws, the men considering labor beneath their dignity. The object was attained, if the plants were sufficiently protected against the encroaching weeds to enable them to overtop the latter, after which they were left to take care of themselves. Yet, notwithstanding all this negligence, prodigal Nature rendered a rich return. It has been said (with what truth we know not) that the weeds of a soil depend upon the race which cultivates ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... (Syrphidae), and beetles, among other visitors, come in great numbers, seeking the accessible pollen, and, in this case, nectar also, secreted in a conspicuous orange-colored disk. When a floret first opens, or even before, the already mature stigmas overtop the incurved, undeveloped stamens, so that any visitor dusted from other clusters cross-fertilizes it; but as the stigmas remain fresh even after the stamens have risen and shed their abundant pollen, it follows that in long-continued stormy weather, when few insects are flying, the flowers fertilize ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... the time they authorize his return, they forbid him, under the severest penalties, from any conversation with the Nabob or his ministers: that is, they forbid his communication with the very person on account of his dealings with whom they permit his return to that city. To overtop this contradiction, there is not a word restraining him from the freest intercourse with the Nabob's second son, the real author of all that is done in the Nabob's name; who, in conjunction with this very Benfield, has acquired an absolute dominion over that unhappy man, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... and a little man. Why, you'd overtop him more than half a head, Mr. Mason, but he has a great soul for battle. He's the kind that will strike and strike, and keep on striking, and that's ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... been said. If we could only overtop the mountains of prejudice, and we fear we must add, for it is the parent of prejudice, ignorance, which divide the West from the East, we should be able to look down not upon a barren wilderness, but a fruitful vineyard, in which the servants of Christ are working under the ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various

... malignity on English lips, the name of Voltaire. No one would pretend that the multiform energy of this giant of literature did not take some unseemly directions and several unlovely shapes. But the qualities of Voltaire must, in the eyes of any unbiassed observer, vastly overtop his defects. If, however, we wish to see Voltaire at his best, we must contemplate him in relation to our soldier-philosopher. As soon as his health had recovered a little from the horror of the Bohemian campaign, Vauvenargues ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... spirits, Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords Before the gates round which I linger oft, In Twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those Gardens which are my just inheritance, Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls And the immortal trees which overtop The Cherubim-defended battlements? 90 If I shrink not from these, the fire-armed angels, Why should I quail from him who now approaches? Yet—he seems mightier far than them, nor less Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful As he hath been, and might ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... the Law within man strive to bring forth themselves in writing to beget numbers of bodies on their sides. That power which begets the bigger number always rules as King or Lord in the creature and in the Creation, till the other side overtop him: even as light and darkness strive in day and night to succeed each other. Or as it is said—"The strong man armed keeps the heart of man till a stronger than he came and cast ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... the chasm. Any one not aware of the fact can hardly explain this appearance to himself, nor understand the noise and surging of the stream. The little bridge in the centre would be taken for the ruins of a fallen bridge, and the chasm is not seen from the shore, because the foaming waves overtop it. An indescribable fear would seize upon the traveller when he beheld the venturous guide ride into the stream, and was obliged to follow ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... virtue is religion; for there is no bulwark of mere morality which some temptation may not overtop, or undermine and ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... to secure them from whatever might happen. Where I was, I yet knew not; whether on the continent, or on an island; whether inhabited, or not inhabited; whether in danger of wild beasts, or not. There was a hill, not above a mile from me, which rose up very steep and high, and which seemed to overtop some other hills, which lay as in a ridge from it, northward. I took out one of the fowling-pieces, and one of the pistols, and a horn of powder; and thus armed, I travelled for discovery up to the top of that hill; where, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... result of long experience of local requirements and conditions, and in every case I think it may be taken that the native boat is the one most suited to the conditions under which it is employed. So on the Nile these lofty sails are designed to overtop the high banks and buildings, and so catch the breeze which would otherwise be intercepted. The build of the boats also is peculiar; they are very wide and flat bottomed, and the rudders are unusually large, so as to enable them to turn quickly in the narrow ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... of a number of ranges; they extend 1,500 miles east and west, and are the sources of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra. The highest is Mount Everest, the loftiest mountain in the world, 29,002 feet; and I could mention several other peaks which overtop any of the Andes. Himalaya means 'the abode of snow,' and the foot-hills are the resorts of the wealthy to obtain a cool ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... born unity of heart, for we cannot obtain true unity, unless the Spirit of God lights His flame in our heart. For this fire makes one and like unto itself all that it can overtop and transform. Unity gives a man the feeling of being concentrated with all his faculties on one point. It gives internal peace and repose of heart. Unity of heart is a bond which draws and binds together the body and the soul, and all exterior and interior forces, ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... height. We guessed that it would be in the direction of these elevations that the inhabitants would flee, and those who had timely warning might thus be able to escape in case the flood did not—as it seemed possible it might in its first mad rush—overtop ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss

... continuous succession of harvest work, passes too swiftly for reflection both for masters and men. But in the calm of autumn there is time again to look round. Then white columns of smoke rise up slowly into the tranquil atmosphere, till they overtop the tallest elms, and the odour of the burning couch is carried across the meadows from the lately-ploughed stubble, where the weeds have been collected in heaps and fired. The stubble itself, short and in regular lines, affords less and less cover every year. As the seed is now ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... the height of its power. It is climbing fast in these days; but still, compare it with the corresponding point in the Atlantean civilisation, and you will realise that it has not yet climbed to its highest point. For every Race must overtop the Race that has gone before it, and we have not yet reached even the level of the old Atlantis in knowledge, and therefore in power over the lower nature, although, as I said, the climbing now is rapid, and will become more and more rapid with every ten years that pass over our heads. For there ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... the most famous of living engineers to make his siege-machines. Crema was completely invested; and every known method of assault was tried. The moat was filled with fascines, and movable towers of wood, so high as to overtop the battlements, were brought up to the walls; which were also attacked with rams, and undermined by sappers working in the shelter of huge penthouses. But breaches were no sooner made than repaired; every scaling-party was repulsed; and the defenders derided ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... indeed," Pollio said, "that we meet here for the first time, and that I did not encounter you in the forests. By the gods, but you have grown into a veritable giant. Why, you must overtop the tallest of ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... hot-springs; in summer a sort of secular monastery for pilgrims to the Dragon peak. They were tenanted now, we had been told, by a couple of watchmen. We struck out with freer strides, while the moon, which had by this time risen high enough to overtop the wall of peaks, watched us with an ashen face, as in single file we moved across the waste ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... tendered the torch of licentiousness, or the steel of murder? Must I say more? Even of late, when thou hadst rendered thy house vacant for new nuptials, by the death of thy late wife, didst thou not overtop that hideous crime, by a crime more incredible? which I pass over, and permit willingly to rest in silence, lest it be known, that in this state, guilt so enormous has existed, and has not been punished. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... exchange will leave fewer blacks to remove, while it will increase our ability to remove them. Self-interest and self-preservation furnish motives enough to excite our exertions.' * * 'By thus repressing the rapid increase of blacks, the white population would be enabled to reach and soon overtop them. The consequence would be security.'—[African Repository, vol. iv. pp. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... feet in air. Its lofty position, seen from the viewpoint of the trail, is one of dignity; it overlooks the pines and firs surrounding the clearing in which the observer stands. The trees on the higher level scarcely overtop it; in part, it is outlined against ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... the world? The human need of possession. To own something, however little. The spur of creative genius. Human beings will never be equal except in lawful privileges. The skillful will outpace the unskillful; the thrifty will take from the improvident; genius will overtop mediocrity. And you will change all this with a scrape of your ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... forests. They do not grow in clusters or masses of single species, like our oaks, beeches, and firs, but every tree is different from its neighbour, and they crowd upon each other in unsocial rivalry, each trying to overtop the other. For this reason we see the great straight trunks rising a hundred feet without a branch, and carrying their domes of foliage directly up to where the balmy breezes blow and the sun's rays quicken. Lianas hurry up to the light ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... painful process: as soon as he gets an idea of whither he is being led, how thankful he will be for every pang that teaches him restraint, and purifies; while we—we shall suffer blind wrench after wrench, stung into feeling at any cost, and not till we painfully overtop the barrier shall we ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... 10 pounds rent than any of the other towns. In Auldbiggin and Plainstanes parties were so equal that no majority on either side could be reckoned on, but the Whig majority in Ladykirk was expected to overtop the Tory majority in the two first towns by as much as would secure Hogarth's return. The Honourable Mr. Fortescue was again to be put up for the Tory interest, for though he had not distinguished himself last parliament, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... to assume a grotesque hour-glass shape, flat on the under part of the head, with a cone of green herbage at the ground. Sometimes pastures are full of little hummocks of trees that have not yet been able to overtop the grazers. ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey

... times in a minute, we have a steady onward movement. Prejudice builds its solid breakwaters; ignorance, inability, clumsiness, and awkwardness raise such obstacles as they can; but the delay of a century is but a moment. Slowly and surely the waters rise till they sweep away all obstacles, overtop all barriers, and plunge forward again with ever accelerating force. The record of iron is at once a record of our glory and of our humiliation,—a record of marvellous, inborn, God-given genius, reaching forth in manifold directions to compass most beneficent ends, but baffled, thwarted, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... favorite sport with them. It is told of a Mr. Kirkton that he followed the hounds on horseback until he was eighty, and from that period to one hundred he regularly attended the unkennelling of the fox in his single chair. Scott's "Dandy Dinmont" could scarcely overtop that. No one can read the "Annals of Yorkshire" without being struck with the number of persons who at their death left bequests to the poor, widows getting a large ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... is surrounded on three sides by hills which overtop it; railroad lines and stations, indeed, do not commonly prefer summits to valleys. On the 30th of October the Boers had already mounted a 40-pounder gun on Peppworth's Hill, north of the town, with which on that day they opened fire at a distance of over 6,000 yards, much outranging the army field ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan

... change the position of a single stone. A large and solid bridge which has been built against it by the states of Languedoc, appears by comparison to shrink into insignificance, and shelter itself behind the old Roman arches, the lower tier of which, eleven in number, overtop it in height by about three-fifths. The span of the largest arch is about 78 feet; of the other ten, 66 each: and they are surmounted by a row of thirty-five smaller arches. With the exception of two or three of these last, the whole fabric is complete, and, if unmolested, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... mediaeval poetry. It is very beautiful, this forest of the Middle Ages; but it is monotonous, melancholy; and has a terrible eeriness in its endlessness. For there is nothing else. There are no meadows where the cows lie lazily, no fields where the red and purple kerchiefs of the reapers overtop the high corn; no orchards, no hayfields; nothing like those hill slopes where the wild herbs encroach upon the vines, and the goats of Corydon and Damoetas require to be kept from mischief; where, a little lower down, the Athenian shopkeeper of Aristophanes goes daily to look ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... comes up to its mark, but after a while the whole sea is there and beyond it. So now and then there comes a man head and shoulders above his fellow men, showing that Nature has not lost her ideal, and after a while even the average man will overtop the highest wave of manhood yet given ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... "Presently," he continued, "as these young trees grow up together, one will overtop the rest. If the adjacent small trees be cut down when this tallest tree has reached a good height, it will spread at the top in order to get as much sunlight as possible. In order to carry a large top the diameter of the trunk must increase. So, by starting the trees close together ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?" (Job 38:36). And that he will do this that he hath promised, yea, promised to do it to that degree, as to make his, that shall be thus concerned for him, to top, and overtop all men that shall them oppose. I, saith he, "will give you a mouth and wisdom, that all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... brotherhood, from religious convictions of duty, and in the belief that they would increase in love to one another, and draw to themselves by their example the good and wise; believing also that if they planted the seeds of truth and unity they would be watered with deeds of faith, and by degrees overtop and destroy the evil undergrowth that abounded in the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman



Words linked to "Overtop" :   overlook, dwarf, overshadow, shadow, command, lie



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