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Overflow   Listen
verb
Overflow  v. t.  (past overflowed; past part. overflown; pres. part. overflowing)  
1.
To flow over; to cover woth, or as with, water or other fluid; to spread over; to inundate; to overwhelm. "The northern nations overflowed all Christendom."
2.
To flow over the brim of; to fill more than full.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overflow" Quotes from Famous Books



... flask or bottle to the brim with water, letting it overflow a little; hold a piece of cardboard firmly over the mouth of the bottle; turn the bottle upside down quickly, putting the mouth of it under water in the pan; take the cardboard away. The water should all ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. Since thou wast precious in my sight thou hast been honorable, and I have ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... of Faiths organized a meeting on September 29th at Whitefield's Congregational Church where I addressed the audience on the weighty subject of "How Faith in Fellowship may Save Civilization." The eight o'clock lectures at Caxton Hall attracted such crowds that on two nights the overflow waited in Windsor House auditorium for my second talk at nine-thirty. Yoga classes during the following weeks grew so large that Mr. Wright was obliged to arrange a transfer to ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... other buildings and grandeurs. Along the two sides [of the city] pass two rivers which rise a league above Cuzco, and from there down to the city and for two leagues below it they run over stone flags so that the water may be pure and clear, and so that, though they may rise, they may not overflow. They have bridges for those who enter the city. Upon the hill which, toward the city, is rounded and very steep, there is a very beautiful fortress of earth and stone. Its large windows which look over the city make it appear still more beautiful.[107] Within, there are many dwellings, ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho

... for the entire stream can not be exactly stated, as the overflow did not occur at the same time in different parts of the basin. For example, the gage-height records at Dundee dam show that the flood began to rise on October 8 at 6.30 a. m., and reached a maximum of 9-1/2 inches over the dam crest at ...
— The Passaic Flood of 1903 • Marshall Ora Leighton

... treacherous and slippery, painfully dazzling to weak eyes, but for all that irresistibly fascinating. Sordello contains enough poetic material for a dozen considerable poems; indeed, its very fault lies in its plethora of ideas, the breathless crowd of hurrying thoughts and fancies, which fill and overflow it. That this is not properly to be called "obscurity" has been triumphantly shown by Mr. Swinburne in his essay on George Chapman. Some of his admirable statements I have already quoted, but we may bear to be told twice that Browning is too much the reverse ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... the overflow pipe of a horse trough which is being fed from a spring. To measure the flow of water from such a spring, all that is necessary is to measure the water escaping through the overflow when the water in the trough ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson

... half-suppressed shout and a waving of glasses, the party sprang up, drops of amber and ruby wine rained down to the table from a reckless overflow of the ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... of the discovery was too large to be grasped by even the gluttonous eye of the managers, The Adelphi might overflow—the Surrey might quake with reiterated "pitsfull"—still there remained over and above the feast-crumbs sufficient for the battenings of other than theatrical appetites. Immediately the press-gang—we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... us to Jesus, and when the dull ear of the dying has ceased to hear the voices of earth that used to thrill it in their lowest whisper, I suppose it hears another Voice that says: 'When thou passest through the fire I will be with thee, and through the waters they shall not overflow thee.' Thus the Separator unites, first to Jesus, and then to 'the general assembly and Church of the first-born,' and leads into the city of the living God, the pilgrims who long have lived, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... Niger. The river was much swelled by the rains, but did not appear to overflow its banks. It certainly is larger even here than either the Senegal or the Gambia. We descended with difficulty down the steep side of the hill towards Bambakoo, which place we reached at half past six o'clock, and pitched our tents ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park

... would overflow its banks and flood the surrounding country. Not only would such a disaster increase the ague and rheumatism that are never far removed from dwellers by the river-side, but a late summer flood might damage the crops on low-lying lands, or carry away corn that had been cut but not carted, and then, ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan

... but studying the drama of the various faces one sees pride, sensuality, cruelty, and fear that no ocean brine can cleanse. Mingled with these, too, are noble countenances lighted up by the fires of holy living within, whose radiance seems to overflow in kindly thoughts and deeds, attracting those sublime qualities to them as the moon the tides. How grand it is to see here the faces of age wearing that calm look of serene hope; victory over self and purity of soul plainly dramatized there! Then, too, how glorious the face of youth glowing with ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... and Janet mortally offended Mr Green by giving him his dinner alone in the kitchen. Every latch and hinge, and pane of glass, and the driving of every nail, was charged and deducted from the half year's salary, at prices which made Janet's indignation overflow. This latter circumstance was not known, however, till the half year was done; and in the meantime it helped them all through this dreary time to find their ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... of the snow and the rains in February cause the ditches to overflow and form shallow pools in the level meadows. Into these sometimes the rooks wade as far as the length of their legs allows them, till the discoloured yellow water almost touches the lower part of the ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... pleasant here. An overflow performance is being given in the theatre to-day for the benefit of those people who could not gain admittance yesterday, and, through the open windows, we can hear the rhythmic chant of the chorus. Mellowed by the distance, the wailing cadence of the plaintive ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome

... distance greater than that from the Westminster Palaces to the hulks at the Isle of Dogs. When we consider that the population of the American Metropolis lives better, on the average, than that of any earthly capital, and that ninety-nine hundredths of all our suffering poor are the overflow of Great Britain's pauperism running into our grand channels a little faster than we can direct its current to the best advantage,—under these circumstances the advance made by New York in less than a century toward the position ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... Why must I still suspect you? Why heaves my heart, and overflow my eyes? Yet if you live, O Guise,—there, there's the cause,— I never shall converse, nor see ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... taught a lesson," returned Matt severely. "What put you up to the idea of letting the water overflow?" ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... between two drunken cowpunchers was fast nearing the gun-pulling stage. Lightning had struck the side hill just beyond the grove, and the shock of it had knocked down and stunned the two disputants, and three saddle horses standing in the muddy overflow from the spring. For this reason, perhaps, and because it was on Lorrigan land, the place had never thereafter been frequented save by the stock that ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... crystal and alabaster, in the latter of which were set windows made of great jewels; sapphires or rubies they seemed to me. We went on up a lovely valley. To the left were hills, down which tumbled waterfalls; to the right was a river broad and deep that seemed to overflow its banks as does the Nile. Behind were high mountains on the slopes of which grew forests of glorious trees, some of them aflame with bloom, while far away up their crests stood colossal golden statues set wide apart. They looked like guardian angels watching that city and that vale. ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... her hand and he clasped it. Her fine faith smote something hard in him, shriveled it like fire, and all at once, miraculously, divinely, a little liquid gush of lovely joy, of wonderful beatitude began to rise from his heart, to rise and overflow and fill him. He was being cleansed, he had expiated his guilt by confessing it to his accuser and receiving her strange and gentle forgiveness; tears came to his eyes, came and paused on the lashes and trickled down. He ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... not impossible to write a systematic theory of War full of spirit and substance, but ours hitherto, have been very much the reverse. To say nothing of their unscientific spirit, in their striving after coherence and completeness of system, they overflow with commonplaces, truisms, and twaddle of every kind. If we want a striking picture of them we have only to read Lichtenberg's extract from a code of regulations in case ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... attitudes, and gestures, and her skill in depicting by movements without words, grief, anger, love, and despair, obtaining the warmest approval. She was patronised by the king, queen, and the royal family, and her benefit produced an "overflow" and something more; tickets were sold at most exorbitant prices, and the people fought for places both with swords and fists. There are stories, too, of purses full of gold being flung upon the stage, with showers ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... if she'd keep to her own cubicle," commented Marjorie. "Sylvia Page will overflow into mine, and I find her things dumped down on my bed. She's nicer than Irene Andrews, though; we had a squabble last night over the window. Betty Moore brought a whole box of chocolates with her, and she ate them in bed and never offered a single one to anybody ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... of the clear eyes of their daughters. The emotions of the girl have not been studied sufficiently. We expect a boy to do things which serve as an outlet to his pent-up emotions but we expect a girl to go on in a calm, uneventful manner with no outlet for the overflow of emotions. Blessed are the "Tomboys." I would there were more of them. It is a fact that the girl who runs, plays, climbs trees and is given to outdoor sports generally during the early part of her life develops into the truest woman. She has an outlet ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry

... great, though inferior, peerage of undying intellect, are secured;—secured even from a second irruption of Goths and Vandals, in addition to many other safeguards, by the vast empire of English language, laws, and religion founded in America, through the overflow of the power and the virtue of my country;-and that now the great and certain works of genuine fame can only cease to act for mankind, when men themselves cease to be men, or when the planet on which they exist, shall have altered its relations, or have ceased to be. Lord Bacon, in the language ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... length, I found myself in the final widening of the corridor which formed an antechamber to the music-room itself. It had been used formerly to hold the overflow of meetings. No door separated it from the great hall beyond, but heavy curtains hung usually to close it off, and these curtains were invariably drawn. They now stood wide. And here—I can merely state the impression that came upon me—I ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood

... is indeed instinctive, but it is non-symbolic; in other words, the sound of pain or the sound of joy does not, as such, indicate the emotion, it does not stand aloof, as it were, and announce that such and such an emotion is being felt. What it does is to serve as a more or less automatic overflow of the emotional energy; in a sense, it is part and parcel of the emotion itself. Moreover, such instinctive cries hardly constitute communication in any strict sense. They are not addressed to any ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... Lord. Man made the world of streets and shops and machinery in which that poor workman lives and dies. What wonder is it if he forgets the God who made him—the God who made the round world, and set it so fast that it should not be moved, and has given the sea its bounds that it should not overflow them at any time? How much better off are you seamen than such ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... our friend's imagination back again to New York, where aberrations were so possible in the intellectual sphere, and it in fact caused a visit she presently paid there to overflow with interest. As Milly had beautifully invited her, so she would hold out if she could against the strain of so much confidence in her mind; and the remarkable thing was that even at the end of three weeks she had held out. But by this time ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... Dian, sitting by the brink Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains From cloudy steeps; and I grew sad to think Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains. And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps In dear remembrance,—lonely, and forlorn, Singing it to herself until she weeps Tears, that perchance still glisten ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... had gone a shorter way through the brambles and brushwood. Until now he had always been overcome by his timidity, and he had turned redder than she as he saw her bare feet, pure and chaste as herself. Now, in the overflow of his ignorant youth, passionately fond of beauty and desirous for love, he was impatient to cry out and tell her of the feeling which had entirely taken possession of him since he had first seen her. But yet, when she brushed by him in her flight, he could only stammer, with a trembling ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... was a smithy and forge; the machinery of the bellows was turned by the water from the Moss-lake Brook, which ran just behind the present Mill Tavern. There the water was collected in an extensive dam, in shape like a "Ruperts' Drop," the overflow turned some of the mill machinery. Many and many a fish have I caught out of that mill-dam. The fields at the back, near Folly-lane, were flooded one winter, and frozen over, when I and many other boys went ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... true thyself if thou the truth wouldst teach, Thy soul must overflow with truth, the true results ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... to eke out a bare subsistence. If it were taken away, the direct result would be an accession of poverty and misery. The demand for skilled labour would be greater, but the unskilled labourer cannot pass the barrier and compete for this; the overflow of helpless, hopeless, feeble, unskilled labour would be greater than ever. Whatever the ultimate effects of decreasing the demand for unskilled labour might be, the misery of the immediate effects could not be lightly set aside. This contradiction of the present certain ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... not belie his enthusiastic description. A triangular hollow, niched in a shelf of the mountain-side, narrowed to a point from which the overflow of the spring percolated through a fringe of alder, to fall in what seemed from the valley to be a green furrow down the whole length of the mountain-side. Overhung by pines above, which met and mingled with the willows that everywhere fringed it, it made the one ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... he "durst bet ah'd bin hevin' whiskey." I went to the Temperance Hall, but was told by Police-superintendent Grayson, who was there with two constables, that he had special instructions not to admit me into the "precincts of that holy place" unless I was perfectly sober. There was an overflow crowd in the street, and I put it to them whether I was drunk or sober. There was a majority that said I was sober, and Mr Grayson allowed me to pass in. When Mr Leach saw me entering the hall, he called out of the ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... struggle, an' is apt to be a nervous wreck before the day arrives. They are nearin' or past thirty when he decides that with economy an' no children they can afford to maintain a home. The bells ring, the lovely strains from "Lohengrin" fill the grand, new house o' God, an' overflow into the quiet streets o' the village, an' we hear in them what Wagner never thought of—the joyful death-march of a race. Think of it, Bill, this old earth is growin' too costly for the use o' man. We prefer autos an' diamonds ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller

... jealous adherence to the strict letter of an absurd legislation, as in consequence to be diverted from their natural course into other and objectionable channels—as the waters of the river artificially dammed up will overflow its banks, and, regaining their level, speed on by other pathways to the ocean. We shall briefly exemplify the force of these truths by the citation of official figures representing the actual state of the trade between Spain and the United ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... wealth; well, a girl like this would be just like Mlle. Bourjot, and in return for any trifling interest you might take in her, she would repay you by the affection and the effusions of which you speak. Her heart would simply overflow with gratitude and love, and you would see in her eyes the expression Renee has noticed, an expression which seems ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... dug by big shells during months of battle. The pools are long enough and deep enough to dive into, and full to overflowing with filthy water. Sometimes the pressure of the water bursts the mud banks of one of these pools and a rush of water comes, and the pools below it overflow, and a noise of water rises in that solitude which is like the mud and water of the beginning of the world before any ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield

... Lord with your wealth, With the best of all you receive, Then your barns will be filled with grain, And your vats overflow with wine. ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... or complete closure of the eye, and a watery discharge due to overstimulation of the lachrymal glands, the fluid being secreted so abundantly that it is impossible for the tear duct to carry it away; hence, there will be a continuous overflow of tears down the horse's face. The formation of a film or scum over the eye need not cause alarm if the eye shows no ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... is at home on rich, alluvial river bottoms subject to overflow, yet it will not grow successfully on damp, soggy lands. It should not be planted on such soils unless they can be well drained, and not then until they have been limed and cultivated for some time to counteract the acidity of the land. We can definitely say that the pecan will ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume

... the depth, and see that variety of sea-monsters and fishes, mermaids, seamen, horses, &c. which it affords. Or whether that be true which Jordanus Brunus scoffs at, that if God did not detain it, the sea would overflow the earth by reason of his higher site, and which Josephus Blancanus the Jesuit in his interpretation on those mathematical places of Aristotle, foolishly fears, and in a just tract proves by many circumstances, that in time the sea will waste away the land, and all the globe of the earth shall ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... Stationary wash-tubs of wood are apt to get soaked up with organic matter and filth. Stationary washstands in bedrooms should have small traps; underneath each should be a leaden tray to protect ceilings in case of leakage, breakage or accidental overflow. This tray should have an overflow, and this overflow should be trapped, if connected with the foul-pipe system (which it should not be if possible to arrange it otherwise). Flues should have a smooth parging or lining, or they will ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... water, and a great quantity of fire, and mighty rivers of fire, and many of liquid mire, some purer and some more miry, as in Sicily there are rivers of mud that flow before the lava, and the lava itself, and from these the several places are filled, according as the overflow from time to time happens to come to each of them. But all these move up and down as it were by a certain oscillation existing in the earth. And this oscillation proceeds from such natural cause as this: one of the chasms of the earth is exceedingly large, and perforated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... dissolve at once. It is thus not merely philosophy which is discredited, but just that homely and popular wisdom by which common life is guided. This too, it appears, instead of being the sterling product of plain experience, is the overflow of an immature philosophy, the redundance of the uncontrolled speculations of thinkers who were unacquainted with scientific method" (p. 8). And then, moreover, there is that great political movement which has so largely and directly affected the course ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... acquaintances, and once, with a cry of joy, a stout, homely-looking young woman started up, exclaiming, "Sister Jane!" and flew into her arms. Upon which Miss Woodford was introduced to 'My sister Coles' and her husband, and had to sit down under a tree and share the festivities, while there was an overflow of inquiries and intelligence, domestic and otherwise. Certainly these were persons whom she would not have treated ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... herself on her knees before her kind heart. Suddenly, at a ray of sunlight, a beggar's song, or any one of the nothings that float in the air and expand the heart, she would burst into tears and demonstrations of affection; her heart would overflow with burning emotions, she would seem to feel a pleasure in embracing her mistress, as if the joy of living again had effaced everything. At other times some trifling ailment of mademoiselle's would bring about the change; a smile would come to the old ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... nails carelessly driven too far within their borders; when the rust that corrupts the metal of which they are commonly composed has eaten their substance from the under side perhaps, their weakness undiscovered till the torrent breaks through; when they become choked with leaves and dust and overflow their banks; when they are torn asunder by their efforts to accommodate themselves to changes of temperature, and when ice cakes come down from the steep roofs and break ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... Whilst on earth, he was the one who nourished the ewe and her lamb, the goat and her kid, and also caused them to be slain—probably in sacrifice. "He has gone, he has gone to the bosom of the earth," the mourners cried, "he will make plenty to overflow for the land of the dead, for its lamentations for the day of his fall, in the unpropitious month of his year." There was also lamentation for the cessation of the growth of vegetation, and one of these hymns, after addressing him as the shepherd and husband of Istar, "lord of the underworld," ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Theophilus G. Pinches

... light of the station lamp. Firio had in his hand a paper, a sort of will and testament given him at the last minute, which made him master in fee simple of the ranch where he had been servant, with the provision that the Doge of Little Rivers might store his overflow of books there forever. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... their brigantines. At this place, an old Indian, who had been unable to make his escape along with the rest, objected to their staying in their present quarters for the winter, saying that the river was in use to overflow every fourteen years, and that this was the expected season of its doing so. They refused however to profit by this information, of which they had sufficient reason to repent in the sequel. The return of the Spaniards to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... the welkin with his big-swol'n face? And wilt thou have a reason for this coil? I am the sea; hark, how her sighs do flow! She is the weeping welkin, I the earth: Then must my sea be moved with her sighs; Then must my earth with her continual tears Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd; For why my bowels cannot hide her woes, But like a drunkard must I vomit them. Then give me leave; for losers will have leave To ease their stomachs with ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... scow stopped so suddenly that its four men plunged forward in a miscellaneous heap, while Zeke narrowly escaped going overboard. Almost immediately the water, backed up behind the stern, began to overflow into the boat. Newmark, clearing his vision as well as he could for lack of his glasses, saw that the scow had evidently run her bow on an obstruction, and had been brought to a standstill square beneath the sluice-gate. Men seemed to be running ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... are fated serfs to freedom—sky and sea; We have failed where slummy cities overflow; But the stranger ways of earth know our pride and know our worth, And we go into the dark as ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service

... Allan went to England with his family to spend several years, and there placed the young Edgar at school in an ancient and historic town, which has since been swallowed up in the overflow of the great metropolis. The venerable appearance and associations of the town, as may be learned from the autobiographic tale of William Wilson, made a deep and lasting impression ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... desired in cheapness, though they might be dearer; in some you get tea for fifteen cents, in others a no better brew for twenty-five. But they are all charmingly peaceful, and when at the noon hour they overflow with conversation, still there is a prevailing sense of quiet, finely qualified by the feminine invention and influence. Mere men are allowed to frequent these places, not only under the protection of women, but also quite unchaperoned, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... States are driven to untried experiments in communal activity. The usual channels of thought dry up, the flood of new ideas and of old ideas throbbing with a new life rushes on unconfined, here in the shallows, there in the deeps, presently to overflow into the old channels, cleansing their beds and giving them a new direction, and linking up in fruitful union but remotely connected streams. When fighting ceases and there comes the calm of peace, society will tend to revert ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... man. It was by nature a wide morass, in which oozy islands and savage forests were interspersed among lagoons and shallows; a district lying partly below the level of the ocean at its higher tides, subject to constant overflow from the rivers, and to frequent and terrible inundations ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... my conversation with Mr. Hamilton came unbidden to my memory. How strange that that proud, reserved man should have spoken so to me, that he had suffered his heart's bitterness to overflow in words to me, who was almost a stranger: 'They lay the blame of that poor boy's death at my door, as though I would not give my right hand to have him back again.' Oh, if Gladys had only heard the tone in which he said this, she must have ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... flood had subsided and the Waag returned to its bed, evil traces were left behind in thick layers of round pebbles; for the Waag is not like those friendly rivers which when they overflow cover the earth with a ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... nothing but water. Then she remembered hearing her husband once say that there was no danger in the tide, for that fell regularly, and people could calculate on it, and that he would rather live near the bay than the river, whose banks might overflow at any time. But was it the tide? So she ran again to the back door, and threw out a stick of wood. It drifted away towards the bay. She scooped up some of the water and put it eagerly to her lips. It was fresh and sweet. It was the river, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... mighty hand, a stretched-out arm, And poured-out fury, ruleth over us. The sword is furbished, sharp i' the slayer's hand. Cry out and howl, thou son of Israel! Thou shalt be fuel to the fire; thy blood Shall overflow the land, and thou no more Shalt be remembered—so the Lord ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... says the fable, Overflow'd a farmer's barn and stable; Whole ricks of hay and stacks of corn Were down the sudden current borne; While things of heterogeneous kind Together float with tide and wind. The generous wheat forgot its pride, And sail'd with litter side by side; Uniting all, to show their amity, As ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... of heaven and earth, cause the streams of his river to overflow[14] ... have his progeny circumcised, and load his feet with ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... At such times fair Reason runs affrighted to hide herself, and foaming Madness fills her throne; at such times our everyday sorrows, howsoever small and petty they be, grow and magnify themselves until they overflow the night, filling the universe above and around us; and of all the woes the human mind can bear—surely Suspicion gnaws ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... miles, and thence, through a system of relieving tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city boundary at Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth and daily supply of 12 1/2 million gallons the water had fallen below the sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E., on the instructions of the waterworks committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of recourse being had to the impotable ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... causes half the liquid to fall back into the well before it reaches the brim. The creaking, singing noise of the wheels, the rush of water as the buckets attain their turning-point, the unceasing splash of their overflow dripping back into the source, all are a message of life and moisture very welcome in this dry and stilly region, and may be heard far off amid the sandhills, a first intimation to the sun-scorched traveller of his approach to ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... the subject. As to psychology and medicine almost the opposite situation prevails. There is perhaps too much talk afloat about psychotherapy, the widest circles cultivate the discussion, the magazines overflow with it. The duty of the scientific psychologist is accordingly not to stir up interest in this topic but to help in bringing this interest from mere gossip, vague mysticism, and medical amateurishness to a clear ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... should her words be? Her words should be few, Honest and genuine, tender and true; Words that overflow from a pure heart within, Guiltless ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... at our force, Since every man but represents a wrong? Nay! rather should our force be multiplied! Fill up your streets and overflow your fields, And crowd upon the earth for standing room; Still would our wrongs outweigh our witnesses, And scant recital for the lack of tongues. I know your reason, and its bitter heart, Its form of justice, clad with promises— The cloaks of death! That reason was the snare Which tripped ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... a book, to fill the margin with comments in pencil. Wherever he went he took a library of books with him, and these volumes he had deprived of all superfluous margin, so as to save weight and space. Not infrequently when hampered by the rapid growth of this travelling library he would toss the "overflow" of books out of his carriage window, and it was his custom (I shudder to record it!) to separate the leaves of pamphlets, magazines, and volumes by running his finger between them, thereby invariably tearing ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... years that Kuang Hsu had nominal control of affairs a series of dire calamities befell the empire. Famines as the result of drought, floods from the overflow of "China's Sorrow," war with Japan, filching of territory by the European countries, while editorials appeared daily in the English papers of the port cities to the effect that China was to be divided up among the powers. Then too Kuang ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... Christian broke out with a loud voice, "Oh, I see him again, and he tells me, 'When thou passest through the waters, I will he with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.'" ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... carried out of it by other rivers that run from the lake, and empty into the Hudson's Bay. There is a belief among the hunters and voyageurs that this lake has its tides like the ocean. Such, however, is not the case. There is at times a rise and overflow of its waters, but it is not periodical, and is supposed to be occasioned by strong winds forcing the waters ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... on the 9th of August, 1492, the whole of Rome, from the People's Gate to the Coliseum and from the Baths of Diocletian to the castle of Sant' Angelo, seemed to have made an appointment on this piazza: the multitude thronging it was so great as to overflow into all the neighbouring streets, which started from this centre like the rays of a star. The crowds of people, looking like a motley moving carpet, were climbing up into the basilica, grouping themselves upon the stones, hanging on the columns, standing up against the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... parents, husband, children, relations—a hobby, moreover, which appears to afford a delight quite independent of the varying degrees of success with which it is pursued. Unhappily the joy of those who thus pursue a much-loved occupation is bound to overflow in words; and if they have no daily auditor within their own four walls, they are driven by circumstances to choose their confidants haphazard when they go out. Miss Tarlton's confidences, however, were all of ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... they all stood, for a minute, surveying the goodly fullness of small delights stored up and waiting for the morrow—how she turned suddenly, and stretched her hands out toward the kind friends who had helped and sympathized in all, and said, with a quick overflow of feeling, that could find only the old words ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... fields of the intellect, and after the most luminous speculations, that I tumble, broken and weary, into this limbo. At such a moment, my angel, a wife would double my love for her—at any rate, she might. If she were capricious, ailing, or depressed, she would need the comforting overflow of ingenious affection, and I should not have a glance to bestow on her. It is my shame, Pauline, to have to tell you that at times I could weep with you, but that ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... strength be," and with David, that in "the valley of the shadow of death, they fear no evil, for He is with them, and that His rod and His staff comfort them," for "when they pass through the waters He will be with them, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow them; when they walk through the fire, they shall not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle upon them, for He is the Lord their God, the Holy One of Israel, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... later, this overflow at the edges of the ice field froze no more; but lay, several feet deep of clear water, over that part of the ice. They could get on to the stream then only at certain points, where the ledges made out, or by throwing planks across. Soon the water began to pour with a louder and louder ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... The modern apartment-house has a common hall and stairway for a dozen families and a common dining-room and kitchen on the model of a hotel. The tenements are human incubators from which children overflow upon the streets, boarders invade the privacy of the family bedroom, and even sanitary conveniences are public. Home life is violated in the tenement by the pressure of an unfavorable environment; it perishes on the avenue ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... speech of a thoughtless old woman—a mere trifle; but it overwhelmed her, coming, as it did, after all that had gone before. It was but the last feather, you know, only a single feather laid on the pack that broke the camel's back. It was but a drop of water, a single drop, that made the full cup overflow! ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Little children's homes in heaven and on earth, All have hearts to tell How good actions overflow the year with mirth: ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various

... matter." Yes; it was strange that now, when some stabbing instinct had made her know that Maurice was not her "perfec' gentil knight," that same instinct should make her know that she loved him!... Not with the old love; not with the love that could overflow into words, the love that had kissed him when he had been "bothered"! "I can never kiss him again," she thought. She did not love him, now, "next to father and mother—dear darlings!" And when she said that, Edith knew that the "darlings" were of her past. "I love them next ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... middle of the site—several miles in extent—was a gray cypress swamp, with five or six hundred trees to the acre, and always awash. The lake end was "trembling prairie" marsh land subject to tidal overflow and ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney

... evoked, by way of contrast, the panorama of his own life, his wretched childhood, his haphazard youth, no less distressing to recall, the days without food, the nights without a place to lay his head. And suddenly, when the reading was at an end, in the midst of a veritable overflow of joy, of one of those outbursts of Southern effusiveness which compel one to think aloud, he cried, protruding his thick lips toward the guests in his ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... not the framing of a deathless lay The pastime of a drowsy summer day. But gather all thy powers, and wreck them on the verse That thou dost weave. . . . The secret wouldst thou know To touch the heart or fire the blood at will? Let thine eyes overflow, Let thy lips quiver with the ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... world apart, into a species, into an eternal idea. Characteristic beauty is the fulness of form which slays form: it does not silence passion, but restrains it as the banks of a river the waters that flow between them, but do not overflow. ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... laws of the game each accepts and fans the vanity of the other. It is from that reason that we venture to lay ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that we swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the limits of their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their secret pretensions, and give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious, musical, and wise, that in their most shining moments they aspire to be. So they ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... work gives us a new knowledge are probably destined to act with great power on our interests, some as the rivals of our commerce, some as the depots of our manufactures, and some as the recipients of that overflow of population which Europe is now pouring out from all her fields on the open wilderness ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... made the unpleasing discovery, that it is one thing to open an establishment of the kind—which had already swallowed up two-thirds of his capital—and another thing to induce the public to patronise it. Notwithstanding the overflow which had gathered at his house-warming, and the numberless good wishes which had been expressed, and toasts which had been drunk to his prosperity, yet the prosperity did not come. Of the hundred and fifty enthusiastic well-wishers who had done honour to his entertainment, squeezed his hand, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various

... proprietor failed to follow me. So did his assistant. The street came in to help—that is, as many as could crowd into the six-by- eight shop; while those that could not force their way in held an overflow meeting on the sidewalk. The proprietor and the rest took turns at talking to me in rapid-fire Spanish, and, from the expressions on their faces, all concluded that I was remarkably stupid. Again I went through my programme, pointing on the sketch from the one ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London

... head sadly, and leaned upon the shoulder of the count, without either of them finding another word in their hearts, which were ready to overflow. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... is a volcanic depression. Into it flow the waters of the Volga, the Ural, the Kour, the Kouma, the Jemba, and others. Without the evaporation which relieves it of its overflow, this basin, with an area of 17,000 square miles, and a depth of from sixty to four hundred feet, would flood the low marshy ground to its north and east. Although it is not in communication with the Black Sea or the Sea of Aral, being at a much lower level than they are, it ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... in the reservoir, the stream flowing down the conduit, throwing out the most brilliant corruscations, the gaseous flames issuing from the upper portions of the mould, and the currents of melted iron which sometimes overflow and spread, like mimic streams of lava, over the ground, present in their combination quite an imposing pyrotechnic display. In fact there is a chance for the visitor, in the case of castings of a certain kind, that he may be treated to an explosion as a part of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various



Words linked to "Overflow" :   run, spill over, stream, flowing, well over, spill, overspill, geyser, run over, outpouring, seethe, boil, feed, flow, run out, runoff, brim over, overflow incontinence, course, bubble over, effusion



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