overspreading

overspreading

1. present participle and gerund of overspread

overspreading (plural overspreadings)

1. That which spreads over something else.
   • 1847, Walter Henry Medhurst, A Dissertation on the Theology of the Chinese, page 252:

     But supposing that heaven had a Lord, then all included in its overspreadings and supportings, throughout the myriad of states, and within the four seas, would invariably be under the government of Heaven's Lord […]

overspreading (comparative more overspreading, superlative most overspreading)

1. Rampant; encroaching.
   • a. 1627 (date written), Francis Bacon, chapter VII, in James Spedding, editor, The Works of Francis Bacon, […]: The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon […], volume IV, London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, published 1858, →OCLC, page 270:

     The third part of practice hath divers branches, but one principal root in these our times, which is the vast and overspreading ambition and usurpation of the see of Rome; […]