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.
Overarching all of that, he said, “We believe Judge Carter erred in effectively taking over control of the WLA campus.”
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 8, 2025
In February, the Government Accountability Office completed a report titled “Special Operations: Overarching Guidance Needed to Oversee and Assess Use of Surrogate Forces to Combat Terrorism,” but everything about it beyond its title is classified.
From New York Times • May 14, 2023
Overarching Nuance’s segments is a “mother ship” of intellectual property, the banker said.
From Forbes • Aug. 29, 2014
Overarching light and enforced darkness, cheek by jowl.
From Time Magazine Archive
Our gratitude goes up in smoke, In incense smoke of prayer; We thank the Underlying Love, The Overarching Care— We do not thank the living men Who make our lives so fair.
From The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) by Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
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.
