Other forms: overran, overruns, overrunning
To overrun is to take a position by sweeping straight over it. The position was overrun, overrun by the enemy, overrun in minutes.
It means passing through rather than stopping to fight, which is what makes it so quick and so total. Figuratively it means being swamped: overrun with tourists, overrun with weeds. It also means exceeding a limit — the meeting overran by an hour, a cost overrun — which is the commonest sense in ordinary working life. Note that the past is overran.
1verboverrunTo take a position by sweeping straight over it.
“Enemy troops overran the small fort before help could arrive.”
2verbexceedTo exceed a limit of time or cost.
“The project overran its budget, and the council had to find more money.”
overrun is an overwhelming or exceeding.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃er-
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃reyH- — to boil, churn
Proto-Germanic
*rinnaną — to run
Old Norse
rinna — to run
Old English
rinnan
Middle English
runnen
English
run
English, today
overrun
Built from
From over- + run. run comes from Middle English runnen, rennen (“to run”), alteration (due to the past participle runne, runnen, yronne) of Middle English rinnen (“to run”), from Old English rinnan, iernan (“to run”) and Old Norse rinna (“to run”), both from Proto-Germanic rinnaną (“to run”), from Proto-Indo-European h₃reyH- (“to boil, churn”). Cognate with Scots rin (“to run”), West Frisian rinne (“to walk, march”), archaic Dutch rinnen (“to flow”, still in geronnen), German rinnen (“to flow”), Swedish rinna (“to flow”), and Icelandic renna (“to flow”). From the causative rannijaną (“to make run”) are Dutch rennen, German rennen, Danish rende, Swedish ränna (all “to run”). Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian rend (“to run, run after”), Persian راندن (“to move, set in motion”). See also random.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA