Definition of "overtop" []

• To extend or rise over or beyond the top of; tower above. (verb-transitive)
• To take precedence over; override: "Religion overtopped the common affairs of life” ( Albert C. Baugh). (verb-transitive)
• To be greater or better than; surpass. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And I'm glad you clarified the term "overtop," because that piece that's showing there now, this, combined with anything that might be coming out of the water, like a barge -- and we just heard a report from WWL in New Orleans that there is a barge in the Industrial Canal, a couple miles long where mostly affecting, near the ninth ward."
• "The water is very high in the canal, and some water is blowing over the top, so maybe it's semantic, but "overtop" sounds a little more dire and hysteria-inducing than necessary at the moment."
• "Higher and higher, thinner and thinner, the crest grew as it began to curve and overtop preparatory to breaking, until with"