overlap

verb over·lap \ ˌō-vər-ˈlap \

Updated on: 7 Apr 2018

transitive verb

1 : to extend over or past and cover a part of

The roof shingles overlap each other.

2 : to have something in common with

Baseball season overlaps the football season in September.

intransitive verb

1 : to occupy the same area in part

The two towns overlap.

2 : to have something in common

Some of their duties overlap.

—

overlap

play \ˈō-vər-ˌlap\ noun

See overlap defined for English-language learners

See overlap defined for kids

Examples of overlap in a Sentence

The roof shingles overlap each other.
Baseball season overlaps football season in September.
Some of your duties overlap his.

Recent Examples of overlap from the Web

The firms’ employees, who often overlap, had contact in 2014 and 2015 with executives from Lukoil, the Russian oil giant.

— danny hakim and matthew rosenberg, New York Times, "Data Firm Tied to Trump Campaign Talked Business With Russians," 17 Mar. 2018
To be fair, there's only so many beauty products out there, so the two sisters are bound to overlap with their products.

— kelsey stiegman, Seventeen, "People Are Dragging Kim Kardashian for Ripping Off Kylie Jenner," 14 Mar. 2018
The bills, often overlapping, targeted earned family and medical leave, equal pay for equal work, harassment in the workplace and increasing the minimum wage.

— sandra gomez-aceves, courant.com, "On International Women's Day, Lawmakers And Advocates Urge Passing Of Equity Bills," 9 Mar. 2018
There are also often overlaps between chronically disorganized people and people with ADHD, depression, and addictive tendencies.

— nora whelan, The Cut, "When You’re a Pack Rat and Your Partner Is a Minimalist," 7 Mar. 2018
The general plan is for a two-aircraft family designed to overlap the largest single-aisle planes and smallest wide-body models.

— Bloomberg.com, "Boeing Faces Airline Tug of War Over Proposed ‘797’ Jet Design," 6 Mar. 2018
Welcome to the Olympics, where on a beautiful winter day, the autotrons of the Alpine skiing world can be upstaged — flat-out beaten, really — by a remarkable athlete who splits her time between two worlds that rarely overlap.

— barry svrluga, The Seattle Times, "Olympic gold medalist Ester Ledecka is the fastest snowboarder on two skis. Wait, what?," 17 Feb. 2018
Just as significant is the growing co-operation between Serbian and Albanian mafias, which overlap with their political classes.

— The Economist, "Gunfire and celebrationA decade since independence, Kosovo is still violent," 15 Feb. 2018
Political power brokers on the Cincinnati Business Committee helped some get elected, and that group's membership overlaps with the FC Cincinnati ownership.

— sharon coolidge, Cincinnati.com, "FC Cincinnati stadium: Who's who in West End debate," 14 Feb. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'overlap.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of overlap

1704

overlap Synonyms

Synonyms

lap, overlay, overlie, overspread;

Related Words

shingle;

OVERLAP Defined for English Language Learners

overlap

verb

: to lie over the edge of (something) : to cover part of the edge of (something)
: to happen at the same time as something else
: to have parts that are the same as parts of something else