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Synonyms

spill over

British  

verb

  1. (intr, adverb) to overflow or be forced out of an area, container, etc

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

noun

  1. the act of spilling over

  2. the excess part of something

  3. economics any indirect effect of public expenditure

  4. astronomy the part of the noise associated with a radio telescope using a dish antenna caused by pick-up by a secondary antenna from directions that do not intercept the dish

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

And this can spill over beyond the venue itself.

From BBC • Feb. 26, 2026

U.S. consumers are feeling pinched financially, but fears that angst would spill over to America’s favorite burger chain were misplaced.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 12, 2026

Yet the anxiety of investors could ratchet up again and spill over into stocks and bonds if employment and inflation take a turn for the worse.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 8, 2026

Those concerns appeared to spill over into digital assets, which have already had a poor start to the year.

From Barron's • Feb. 5, 2026

After the Boston Tea Party, in 1773, when the anger of the American colonists against their British rulers began to spill over, dozens of committees and congresses of angry colonists sprang up around New England.

From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

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.