How to Use overtop in a Sentence

overtop

verb
  • Lake water would overtop its gates and race into the city, and beyond.
    New York Times, 17 May 2020
  • At the current forecast, water will near the west end bridge approach to FM 1485 and may overtop the roadway.
    From Community Reports, Houston Chronicle, 30 Mar. 2018
  • This space once was an odd little closet off the living room overtop the stairwell.
    Taylor Mead, House Beautiful, 3 Aug. 2018
  • There’s something about Dounia’s cool couplets overtop a slow step-soul beat that feel crisp and salty.
    Claire Dodson, Teen Vogue, 20 June 2019
  • The sea wall in Scituate, Mass., is already being overtopped by waves as the first high tide of the storm rolls in.
    Angela Fritz, Washington Post, 3 Mar. 2018
  • The number could rise to as many as 2,945 dead if levees broke before being overtopped.
    Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com, 22 May 2018
  • The Department of Water Resources says the lake is likely to rise right to the top, but that there is no risk of the dam itself overtopping.
    Paul Rogers, The Mercury News, 10 Feb. 2017
  • Dockside, floodwaters overtop the concrete piers, shorting power hookups to the mighty ships that are docked in the world’s largest naval base.
    Laura Parker, National Geographic, 7 Feb. 2017
  • The fear was that the waterways would overtop the levees built to protect the community.
    Kurtis Alexander, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Jan. 2023
  • Sandy’s unprecedented 16-foot surge overtopped the roads and poured into homes.
    Nathalie Baptiste, Slate Magazine, 30 Oct. 2017
  • Barry’s waters overtopped the Montegut and Dularge levees, though none of them were breached.
    Meghan Overdeep, Southern Living, 15 July 2019
  • But a levee in Terrebonne Parish was overtopped by water for part of the day, officials said.
    Fox News, 14 July 2019
  • Officials released water from those reservoirs to ease the pressure, but at least one of the reservoirs still overtopped its banks.
    Alaska Dispatch News, 30 Aug. 2017
  • Murphy said that if conditions remain dry, the sill will most likely be overtopped again.
    Denise Chow, NBC News, 26 Sep. 2023
  • Some of them, like Lock and Dam 4 in Alma, closed because the water has overtopped the lock chamber where boats typically pass through, Moes said.
    Madeline Heim and Brittney J. Miller, Journal Sentinel, 27 Apr. 2023
  • Record flooding early last year and in the summer overtopped and breached dozens of levees along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.
    USA TODAY, 3 Jan. 2020
  • The potential for disaster is greater when a levee is overtopped—or worse, breached—by tidal Lake Pontchartrain or the river, which bookend the city.
    The Economist, 26 July 2019
  • Some debris basins were in place, but they were quickly overtopped by the hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of water and sediment.
    Lee MacDonald, Washington Post, 20 Jan. 2018
  • In a 200-year event, levees throughout the New Orleans area would be overtopped, Needham's assessment said.
    Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com, 22 May 2018
  • Those surge levels will not be enough to overtop hurricane levees in New Orleans.
    Ramon Antonio Vargas | Staff Writer, NOLA.com, 22 Aug. 2020
  • During Floyd, dozens of these lagoons either breached or were overtopped by floodwaters, spilling the contents.
    Michael Biesecker, Fox News, 12 Sep. 2018
  • Their muffins overtopped the baking tins in a mushroom cloud shape and were not only spectacular to look at, but delicious.
    Chronicle Staff, San Francisco Chronicle, 19 Mar. 2018
  • As the Missouri, the Mississippi and other rivers reached record heights, dozens of levees put in place to protect residents were breached or overtopped.
    Thomas Frank, Scientific American, 30 Dec. 2019
  • But that will depend on how fast the waters recede and, in some places where water levels overtopped lock structures, whether any repair of the structures are needed.
    Madeline Heim, Journal Sentinel, 2 May 2023
  • In Gentilly, the Peoples Avenue Canal may have been temporarily overtopped, the city said, but there were no breaches.
    Bob Warren, NOLA.com, 5 Aug. 2017
  • Her eyes, not quite blue, not quite brown, have a watery quality, as if some sadness in her nature has finally overtopped its banks.
    Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Water project operators must reduce flows to avoid overtopping the concrete banks of the aqueduct in those sections that have sunk.
    Lisa M. Krieger, The Mercury News, 9 Feb. 2017
  • The park closed its Westside Road, which saw minor damage after glacial floodwater overtopped it.
    Author: Evan Bush, Anchorage Daily News, 9 Aug. 2019
  • The river had been expected to crest at the same height as the lowest parts of the levees, raising concerns of overtopping levees or water splashing over the levees.
    Washington Post, 12 July 2019
  • The Army Corps studied what would happen to six dams in California, and the results suggested that two of them would probably be overtopped.
    Christopher Cox Spencer Lowell, New York Times, 22 June 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'overtop.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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