The Collaborative International Dictionary
Overfall \O"ver*fall`\, n.
A cataract; a waterfall. [Obs.]
(Naut.) A turbulent surface of water, caused by strong currents setting over submerged ridges; also, a dangerous submerged ridge or shoal.
Wiktionary
n. A turbulent section of a body of water, caused by strong currents passing over submerged ridges. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To fall over (something). 2 (context transitive English) To attack (someone). 3 (context intransitive English) To fall over.
Usage examples of "overfall".
Gribben Head, showing the way into Fowey, and then the Dodman, just past Mevagissey, and some nasty overfalls, the Bellows, for any ship that kept in too close.
Cyrus Harding had not been able to discover the overfall, which, however, must exist somewhere.
It was most probable that an overfall existed somewhere, and doubtless through a cleft in the granite.
W, a mile north of the 100-fathom line, less than two miles from the notoriously shallow Overfall Shoal, which stretches six miles out from Rose Point, the northeasterly tip of Graham Island.
Meantime, there were tugs, frogmen, oil pipeline emergency crews, support vessels, cranes, and divers hurtling toward the shallows north of the Overfall Shoal from where the pumping oil seemed to emanate.
At least, we know exactly where he was at midnight on Saturday, right near the Overfall Shoal.
They will also have known we were very close indeed to the spot where the oil pipeline was breached on the Overfall Shoal.
There are more reefs and skerries and underwater rocks and overfalls and whirlpools and tidal races in twenty miles there than in the whole of the rest of Scotland.
In the lee of the islands the loch was black as midnight but elsewhere it was a seething boiling white, the waters wickedly swirling, churning, spinning in evil-looking whirlpools as it passed across overfalls or forced its way through the narrow channels between the islands or between the islands and the shore.
There were no waves as such, just a bubbling swirling seething maelstrom of whirlpools, overfalls and races, running no way and every way, gleaming boiling white in the overfalls and races, dark and smooth and evil in the hearts of the whirlpools.
The overfalls of rock and the unfriendly thorn-trees, selfishly taking up all the room, necessitate frequent zigzags up and down the rocky, precipitous banks.
The current with heavy overfalls, caused him to be constantly taken under water, and also proved very trying to those in the boat.
The overfalls are caused by two currents rushing in opposite directions, meeting with a great crash and making a tremendous wave.
He accounted for it by the fact that having been so frequently drawn under by the overfalls, the water had entered at the sides of the face.
Again, we would be staggering through the tide-rips and overfalls that infest the open fairway of the Weser on our passage between the Fork and the Pike.