overfall
Britishnoun
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a turbulent stretch of water caused by marine currents over an underwater ridge
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a mechanism that allows excess water to escape from a dam or lock
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the point at which a sewer or land drainage discharges into the sea or a river
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.
The DAM at the Croton River is 40 feet high, and the overfall 251 feet in length.
From Handbook of The New York Public Library by New York Public Library
At seven-thirty o'clock, he was again lost sight of in a heavy overfall, the current setting to the eastward at a place commonly known as La Ballesta.
From The Story of Paul Boyton Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World by Boyton, Paul
The swell was unaccountably high, and the seas were curling over each other and breaking all round us just as if we were in a tide-race or overfall.
From The Cruise of the 'Alerte' The narrative of a search for treasure on the desert island of Trinidad by Knight, E. F. (Edward Frederick)
It was most probable that an overfall existed somewhere, and doubtless through a cleft in the granite.
From The Mysterious Island by Verne, Jules
He determined this time to carry out his old plan of searching for a passage up Davis’s “overfall”—so-called in allusion to the overfall of the tide which Davis had observed rushing through the strait.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 7 "Horticulture" to "Hudson Bay" by Various
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.
