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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arch, archi (chief, most important, rule)
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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.
He also advocates for holding a single overarching UN conference "because the Earth is one" and the crises of climate, biodiversity and pollution cannot be tackled in isolation.
From Barron's ● Oct. 28, 2026
To make up for this, Gray’s team tried to enlist several leading academic historians to instill more of an overarching narrative structure.
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
Marmoush decided to dribble centrally and there is a question as to whether he could have still played the pass - but the overarching ideas are almost coming together.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
It’s part art museum, part “Star Wars” theme park, part billionaire-collector’s vanity project whose overarching storyline is The Illustrator Strikes Back.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
Ishmael, one long afternoon, helped Dale Papineau—self-appointed caretaker for half a dozen summer families—prune back the alder branches overarching their long drive.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
