Other forms: overstepped, overstepping, oversteps
To overstep is to go beyond a limit you should have respected. Overstep the mark, overstep your authority, overstepped the boundary.
Overstep the mark is the fixed phrase and covers manners as much as rules. Of officials it is a serious charge: to overstep your authority is to act without the power to do so, which makes the act void.
1verboverstepTo go beyond a limit you should have respected.
“The coach overstepped his role by telling players what to eat at home.”
overstep is an exceeding.
Old English ofersteppan is over plus step, with cognates across the Germanic languages.
Proto-Germanic
*uberstapjaną — to step over; overstep
Old English
ofersteppan
Middle English
*oversteppen
English, today
overstep
From Middle English oversteppen, from Old English ofersteppan, from Proto-Germanic uberstapjaną (“to step over; overstep”). Cognate with Dutch overstappen, German Low German överstappen, German überstapfen, überstepfen. Cf. transgress. by surface analysis, en + over + step.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA