different between overlay vs whitewash

English

Etymology 1

over- +? lay. Compare overlie.

Pronunciation

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?'v?-l??, IPA^(key): /???.v??le?/
• (General American) enPR: ?'v?r-l??, IPA^(key): /?o?v??le?/

Noun

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ??v?-l?', IPA^(key): /???.v??le?/
• (General American) enPR: ??v?r-l?', IPA^(key): /?o?v??le?/
• Rhymes: -e?

Verb

overlay (third-person singular simple present overlays, present participle overlaying, simple past and past participle overlaid or overlayed)

1. (transitive) To lay, spread, or apply something over or across; cover.
2. To overwhelm; to press excessively upon.
   • c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War

     when any country is overlaid by the multitude which live upon it

3. (transitive, now rare, archaic) To lie over (someone, especially a child) in order to smother it; to suffocate. [from 14th c.]
   • 1692, John Dryden, Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy

     a heap of ashes that o'erlays your fire

   • 1993, Pat Barker, The Eye in the Door, Penguin 2014 (The Regeneration Trilogy), p. 371:

     Prostitutes, thieves, girls who ‘overlaid’ their babies, abortionists who stuck their knitting needles into something vital – did they really need to be here?

4. (transitive, printing) To put an overlay on.

Translations

Noun

overlay (plural overlays)

1. (printing) A piece of paper pasted upon the tympan sheet to improve the impression by making it stronger at a particular place.
2. (gambling) Odds which are set higher than expected or warranted. Favorable odds.
3. (horse racing) A horse going off at higher odds than it appears to warrant, based on its past performances.
4. A decal attached to a computer keyboard to relabel the keys.
5. (programming) A block of program code that is loaded over something previously loaded, so as to replace the functionality.
6. (Internet) A pop-up covering an existing part of the display.
7. (Scotland) A cravat.

Translations

Etymology 2

Verb

overlay

1. simple past tense of overlie

Anagrams

• lay over, layover

English

Etymology

white +? wash

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?wa?tw??/
• Rhymes: -a?tw??

Noun

whitewash (countable and uncountable, plural whitewashes)

1. A lime and water mixture for painting walls and fences bright white.
2. (sports) A complete victory or series of victories without suffering any losses; a clean sweep.
3. (obsolete) Any liquid composition for whitening something, such as a wash for making the skin fair.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Addison to this entry?)

4. (politics) A campaign to paper over unfavorable elements.

   Antonym: blackwash
5. (Britain, slang, obsolete) A glass of sherry as a finale, after drinking port and claret.
   • 1883, Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery (page lxxxiii)

     The bottles, however, were port bottles, but contained mushroom ketchup; and we can only say with regard to the 15s. sherry, that it would have made an admirable "whitewash," as Sheridan's glass is still sometimes called, […]

   • 1950, Wine & the Wine Trade (page 28)

     Sercial was also used as a sort of white-wash after the Port at dinner, those were the days when people had time to drink both Port and a White wash.

Derived terms

• whitewashing
• whitewashed

Translations

References

• (glass of sherry): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Verb

whitewash (third-person singular simple present whitewashes, present participle whitewashing, simple past and past participle whitewashed)

1. To paint over with a lime and water mixture so as to brighten up a wall or fence.

2. (figuratively) To cover over errors or bad actions.

   Antonym: blackwash
3. (dated, transitive) To repay the financial debts of (another person).
4. (baseball, slang, dated, late, 19th century, archaic) To prevent a team from scoring any runs.
5. (US, Britain, slang) In various games, to defeat (an opponent) so that they fail to score, or to reach a certain point in the game; to skunk.
6. (derogatory) To make over (a person or character, a group, an event, etc) so that it is or seems more white, for example by applying makeup to a person, or by covering over the participation of people of color in an event and focusing on only white participation.

Derived terms

• bluewash
• brownwash
• cloudwash
• greenwash
• pinkwash

Translations

Further reading

• whitewash on Wikipedia.Wikipedia