Meaning

verb fail by aiming too high or trying too hard

verb beat through cleverness and wit

originThe verb is from Middle English overrechen (“to rise above; to extend beyond or over; to encroach; to catch, overtake; to reach; to obtain wrongfully (?); to take up (a book) to revise it”) [and other forms], equivalent to over- + reach; the noun is derived from the verb or from the phrase to reach over.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0