What is "overlaying"

Overlay \O`ver*lay"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Overlaid; p. pr. & vb. n. Overlaying.]

1. To lay, or spread, something over or across; hence, to cover; to overwhelm; to press excessively upon.

   When any country is overlaid by the multitude which live upon it.
   --Sir W. Raleigh.

   As when a cloud his beams doth overlay.
   --Spenser.

   Framed of cedar overlaid with gold.
   --Milton.

   And overlay With this portentous bridge the dark abyss.
   --Milton.

2. Specifically: To cover (an object made of an inexpensive metal, glass, or other material) with a thin sheet of an expensive metal, especially with silver or gold. Distinguished from to plate, which is done by a chemical or electrical deposition process.

3. To smother with a close covering, or by lying upon.

   This woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it.
   --1 Kings iii. 19.

   A heap of ashes that o'erlays your fire.
   --Dryden.

4. (Printing) To put an overlay on.

Overlaying \O"ver*lay"ing\, n. A superficial covering; a coating.

vb. (present participle of overlay English)

'''Overlaying '''or overlying is the act of smothering a child to death by rolling over them in sleep.

Overlaying was perceived to be one common way of conducting infanticide in Victorian England. Many wet nurses were accused of this, and in many counties the wet nurse would have to provide a crib out of her own money to ensure that she would not sleep with the child.

In researching smothering deaths by black slaves in the American South, which occurred nine times more frequently than in white families, Michael P. Johnson suggests that sudden infant death syndrome was in fact to blame (which, if it happened in white families, would be heavily underreported because of the social stigma attached).