English Vocabulary: Learn 15 words with the prefix OVER-

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Welcome to www.engvid.com.

In today's video we're going to look at a bit of grammar/vocab; and more specifically,

we're going to look at the prefix "over".

Now, I made a previous video and I looked at the word "under".

These kind of go together; you don't need to watch one to understand this one; but if

you like this video, then you can watch the other one, get both sides of the equation

as it were - "over" and "under".

So, what we're going to look at is the word "over".

Now, the word "over" is a preposition.

And it means more than or too much; or more commonly when we're talking about position

or location, it's like above.

So, it's over something; "above" and "over" are a little bit different.

There's a separate video for that as well.

So, what we're going to look at is what happens when we join the word "over" with another

In most cases, you can probably guess the meaning just by taking the word "over" and

the second word, and understand that they go together.

For example, "overachieve".

If you "overachieve" means you're completing or achieving more than what is expected or

more than what is standard.

But sometimes you're going to get words that are joined with "over" that you can't really

guess because they don't mean what the two parts mean.

For example, "overtake".

Now, if you think about "take over" as the phrasal verb, "to take over" means to assume

the position of.

So, the... or the company's president is retiring, and somebody else will take over; somebody

else will become the president and take over that position.

But "overtake" has a different meaning.

If you "overtake" someone, it means you pass them.

So, for example, if there's a race and somebody's in the lead, and somebody else comes from

behind and overtakes - means they pass them; they take the lead instead.

So that's what "overtake" means.

So, you can't exactly guess by looking at the two words separately.

So we're going to look at a bunch of verbs, and we're going to look at a couple of adjectives

and nouns as well.

So, "overcome".

So, again, no relation between "take" or "come" to somebody's house, for example.

If you "overcome" something, it means that you are able to successfully get over an obstacle

or a difficulty.

So, if you have some trouble, let's say with your English, and you watch engVid videos

on a regular basis, you will overcome this problem, and you will be a fluent English

speaker very soon I hope.

So keep working hard and you will overcome this difficulty.

"Overestimate".

So, again, we looked at "underestimate"; now we're looking at "overestimate".

When you think about something in terms of its size, or its strength, or its value, if

you overestimate, you think it is more than it actually is.

So that's why we have the more than.

If I overestimate the value of a ring, for example... if I get a ring, a gold and diamond

ring, and I think: "Wow, this is really beautiful.

It must be, like, $10,000."

But actually it's 5,000, so I way overestimated its value.

I thought its value way more than it is.

So it's a bit of a bad guess to the over side, rather than the under side.

"Haul"...

"To haul" something means to carry, but "to overhaul" is a completely different meaning.

When we're looking at a piece of machinery, for example, a car engine-okay?-and we overhaul

it, it means we completely take it apart, and we replace all the pieces and rebuild

it to make it like new.

So we fix something completely; we overhaul it.

In business, a new manager comes to the office and he wants to overhaul the processes - means

he wants to change everything, he wants to break them all apart, and build brand new

processes for the office to increase productivity, for example.

If you "overhear" something, it's like "hear", but "overhear", it doesn't mean you hear too

much; it means you heard a conversation that you weren't supposed to hear.

So, two people over there are speaking and they're speaking a little bit loudly, so you

can overhear; you can actually hear what they're saying.

So, nothing to do with above or too much; it's more like they're speaking too loudly

and that's why you can hear them.

Now, if you say: "Look over" it means, you know, you study something, you look over the

facts, make sure everything's okay.

If you "overlook" something, means you missed something.

So, I was reading all the information, and I overlooked a very important detail - means

I missed it; I didn't see it at the first time I was reading it.

It could cause problems later on.

"Overrun" means when there's just too much of something, or people, or etc.

For example, the situation.

If you go to a tourist area, it might be overrun with... by... overrun by tourists; not with.

"Overrun" means there's too many, and it's spread out too much and you don't enjoy the

tourist location.

If you go to, for example, in the US they have something called Black Friday.

Black Friday is a very special shopping day after Thanksgiving where all the stores give

very, very big discounts on items.

I personally don't like to go shopping on these days because the stores are just overrun

by crazy shoppers who want to get the last TV, or the last whatever on a very good deal.

Stay away from those stores; they're overrun.

"Override" and "overrule", these are very similar.

"Override" means to take away automatic control.

When we're talking about a computer or machinery, if you override a command it means you cancel

the command and you put a new one.

When you're talking about overruled, it's about people.

So, for example, a judge decided A; another judge overruled that judge and decided B instead.

So, "to overrule" means to put your rule over the other one.

So, it's a little bit of the above because it's one on top of the other, but the other

one is superior or has more authority, and that's why it's the one that counts.

And "override", the new command for the computer or the machine is the one that is actually

used by the machine or the computer.

"Oversee" it doesn't mean see over something; it basically means to supervise.

So a little bit means, like, looking at everything, but nobody actually is seeing anything; they

are just in control, in charge, managing, so they are supervising staff.

So you oversee the staff, you oversee the process, you oversee the project means you

just supervise.

So these are all verbs.

Now, sometimes you have adjectives that join two words as well with "over", and the meaning

is a little bit different.

When you're talking about "overboard" - two meanings.

The literal meaning is when you're on a ship in the sea, and somebody falls over the side

of the ship and into the water, so that person went overboard.

But if you're talking about a general situation, "overboard" means a little bit too far.

A little bit more than they should have.

So, if somebody is basically reacting badly to some bad news, and they start firing or

they start yelling at people, then they've gone a little bit overboard; they've gone

a little bit further than they should have, makes other people feel uncomfortable.

An "overcast sky" means just very grey.

Not necessarily clouds, but just grey.

If you're "overjoyed", it doesn't mean you're too happy because there's no such thing as

too happy; happy is good.

"Overjoyed" just means happy.

Now, some people, their teeth are not exactly aligned, so their top teeth stick out a little

bit and then their bottom teeth are behind.

So, these are the top teeth, these are the bottom teeth, so you have an overbite.

The top teeth stick out a little bit.

And "overkill" is a little bit like "overboard".

"Overkill" means just too much of anything.

So, if you're giving someone a compliment, and you just give them too much compliment,

like: "Oh, you're so beautiful, you're so this, you're so that."

A little bit of overkill.

"Overkill" is not a good thing.

When you're giving too much of something, you're making it a little bit less meaningful,

so not a good thing.

And also a noun; nothing to do with the word, with the verb "to kill".

So, again, if you're not sure about any words like these, if you see a word and you're not

sure what the combination means, make sure you look it up in a dictionary to confirm

your guess or just to find out if you don't actually know.

But, of course, if you're still not sure, you can go to www.engvid.com and ask me any

questions in the comments section below.

You can also take the quiz to make sure that you understand all of these words and how

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I'll see you then.