overpeer

From over- +‎ peer.

• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

overpeer (third-person singular simple present overpeers, present participle overpeering, simple past and past participle overpeered)

1. To peer over; to overlook.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     the English, in the suburbs close intrench’d,
     Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars
     In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,
     And thence discover how with most advantage
     They may vex us with shot, or with assault.

   • 1906, Arthur Quiller-Couch (under the pseudonym “Q”), The Mayor of Troy, London: Methuen, Chapter 1, p. 16,

     In Admirals’ Row Miss Sally Tregentil would overpeer her blind and draw back in a flutter lest the Major had observed her.

2. (figuratively) To rise above.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     The ocean, overpeering of his list,
     Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
     Than Young Laertes, in a riotous head,
     O’erbears Your offices.

   • 1896, Charles G. D. Roberts, The Forge in the Forest, Boston: Lamson, Wolffe & Co., Part I, Foreward, p. 12,

     These patches are but meagre second growth, with here and there a gnarled birch or overpeering pine, lonely survivor of the primeval brotherhood.

• “overpeer”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.