overˈarching, ppl. a.
[f. prec. + -ing2.]
Arching over; forming an arch overhead; bending over as an arch. Also fig.
1720 Gay Dione iii. ii, Hast thou yet found the over⁓arching bower, Which guards Parthenia from the sultry hour? 1725 Pope Odyss. ix. 216 A fence of marble from the rock, Brown with o'er-arching pine, and spreading oak. 1845 Hirst Poems 32 From the valley dark and deep To the over-arching sky. 1913 [see lamp-shine s.v. lamp n.1 4 a]. 1926 J. S. Huxley Ess. Pop. Sci. 192 The great biological invention, the amnion, came into existence—an overarching membrane grown by the embryo for its own protection. 1929 V. Woolf Granite & Rainbow (1958) 98 Some over-arching conception, something which we may call ‘a reading of life.’ 1938 E. Bevan Symbolism & Belief iii. 62 The wholly separate world he sees overhead..gives, as nothing else can give, the vision of overarching immensity. 1972 Listener 9 Mar. 301/3 There is a hunger for sociological theory—but there is no over-arching Newtonian scheme..by which the differences can be resolved. 1976 Brit. Jrnl. Sociol. XXVII. 348 The ‘world economy’..is a world-system like the world-empire—but which has no overarching political structure. |