overarching
Americanadjective
-
forming an arch above.
great trees with overarching branches.
-
encompassing or overshadowing everything.
The community's overarching needs are more jobs and better housing.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of overarching
Explanation
When something is overarching, it affects or includes everything. While your novel touches on a lot of subjects and ideas, its overarching theme is the importance of friendship. When it's used figuratively, this adjective describes a quality that influences every single part of something. You can say that your club's overarching interest is the outdoors, or that the overarching goal of your school is to give everyone a solid STEM education. Overarching also literally means "forming an arch shape over something," like the overarching grape vines you pass beneath to enter your friend's garden.
Vocabulary lists containing overarching
Life of Pi
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Masterminds
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Moneyball
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For instance, New York-Newark-Jersey City, N.Y.-N.J., refers to the large, overarching metro area.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 14, 2026
The Emmys split their nominations into three overarching categories: comedy, drama and limited or anthology series.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026
Before the festival began, Telluride director Julie Huntsinger told me that if there was an overarching emotional through line to this year’s program, it was “tenderness.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
For Farber, the "overarching ecosystem" in Munich and surrounding Bavaria state is underpinning the growth of defence startups.
From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026
From the overarching metal frame crowning each machine, wooden harnesses, carrying hundreds of warp threads drawn from a massive beam at the back of each loom, clanked up and down.
From "Lyddie" by Katherine Paterson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
