What's the difference between overtake and seize?

Overtake


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To come up with in a course, pursuit, progress, or motion; to catch up with.
  • (v. t.) To come upon from behind; to discover; to surprise; to capture; to overcome.
  • (v. t.) Hence, figuratively, in the past participle (overtaken), drunken.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is the second fate that is overtaking the government's higher education reforms.
  • (2) The expansion comes hot on the heels of another year of stellar growth in which Primark edged closer to overtaking high street stalwart M&S in sales and profits.
  • (3) Another was a mock-up of a speeding ticket for Mr G Bale, Campeón de Copa, for overtaking recklessly, crossing a continuous white line.
  • (4) Aims include overtaking Tesco to become the market leader in general merchandise and leapfrogging Sainsbury's to become No 2 in food.
  • (5) On the positive side, it will very soon overtake Les Miserables (£40.8m) to become the second-biggest 2013 release, behind only Despicable Me 2 (£47.4m).
  • (6) Desmond has some way to go if Channel 5 is to overtake Channel 4 as the fourth most popular TV channel in the UK.
  • (7) Until the first exit polls came in on the evening of Sunday 26 June, the sorpasso (overtaking) was taken for granted.
  • (8) Marketing experts estimated that the campaign cost about £7,500, and succeeded in boosted Cameron’s “likes” by 47,000 to 127,000, overtaking Nick Clegg’s 80,000 in the process.
  • (9) The overtaking of the role as a widow is much dependent of capacities which are learned in an earlier life span.
  • (10) THe German striker still needs one more goal to overtake Ronaldo and become the all-time highest World Cup scorer with 16 goals.
  • (11) It thought it could overtake the socialists as the leading force on the left and, so, either lead the government or lead the opposition.
  • (12) Batman v Superman this week became the highest-grossing superhero film of 2016 so far, overtaking Deadpool, and is the second highest-grossing movie overall behind Zootopia (Zootropolis in the UK).
  • (13) However Moyles, who had been hoping to overtake the Radio 2 breakfast in the Rajar figures following Wogan's handover to Evans, instead saw the gap between the two shows' audiences increase.
  • (14) The outlook predicted coal’s ongoing decline would see gas overtake it as the world’s second largest source of energy by 2035, with fracking for US shale driving much of the gas growth.
  • (15) Even in the multimillion pound industry that is the Premier League these days, fate can still overtake all the best-laid preparations.
  • (16) China is poised to overtake India to become the world's biggest market for gold this year thanks to soaring investment purchases of bullion and steadily rising jewellery sales, according to the World Gold Council's annual report.
  • (17) Market share at Sainsbury's, the UK's third biggest food retailer, remained flat following months of growth that had pushed it close to overtaking its rival Asda .
  • (18) RBC and Capgemini analysts said the Asia-Pacific region would almost certainly overtake north America this year.
  • (19) This was the first year that men aged 45 to 59 showed the highest suicide rate, 25.1 per 100,000, overtaking those aged 30 to 44, who had previously recorded the highest rate from 1995 to 2012.
  • (20) Rees, who was promoted to editorial director at the publishers NatMag-Rodale in April , has overseen a recession-bucking 15-month run of year-on-year sales increases to see his title overtake FHM as the biggest-selling men's magazine in the first half of this year.

Seize


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To fall or rush upon suddenly and lay hold of; to gripe or grasp suddenly; to reach and grasp.
  • (v. t.) To take possession of by force.
  • (v. t.) To invade suddenly; to take sudden hold of; to come upon suddenly; as, a fever seizes a patient.
  • (v. t.) To take possession of by virtue of a warrant or other legal authority; as, the sheriff seized the debtor's goods.
  • (v. t.) To fasten; to fix.
  • (v. t.) To grap with the mind; to comprehend fully and distinctly; as, to seize an idea.
  • (v. t.) To bind or fasten together with a lashing of small stuff, as yarn or marline; as, to seize ropes.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Batson believes there is a “mood” that needs to be seized upon.
  • (2) George Osborne said the 146,000 fall in joblessness marked "another step on the road to full employment" but Labour and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) seized on news that earnings were failing to keep pace with prices.
  • (3) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (4) Among the dead were two young young officers, Major Mujahid Ali and Captain Usman, whose life stories the media seized upon, helped by the military's public relations machine.
  • (5) Remember, if he did seize group power and dispose of the Independent , he'd still be boss of the rest of INM: 200 or so papers and magazines around the world, dominant voices in Australasia, South Africa, India and Ireland itself, 100 million readers a week.
  • (6) Lieberman said: "[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.
  • (7) Generals who have mutinied have seized the capital of South Sudan's largest state, Jonglei, and its main oil-producing area, Unity State.
  • (8) The coroner also raised concerns that although the aim of the operation in which Duggan was killed was to take guns off the streets, little attempt was made to seize weapons believed to be held by Hutchinson-Foster.
  • (9) Employers seize the workers’ passports and the only body that can issue a permit for a worker to leave Qatar is the employer himself.
  • (10) Backlogs and staff shortages have long been seized upon by veterans groups lobbying for more resources, but it is the apparent cover-up of the scale of the problem that has transformed these latest complaints into a growing political problem for the White House.
  • (11) Social media has seized on the story, turning the Eastern Washington University’s professor of African studies into a figure vilified and mocked for cultural appropriation in the midst of fraught debates over transgender identity and police shootings of black people.
  • (12) A Yazidi lawmaker, a Kurdish security official and an Iraqi official from the nearby city of Sinjar gave similar accounts, saying Isis fighters had massacred scores of Yazidi men on Friday afternoon after seizing Kocho.
  • (13) "This is a formidable challenge, requiring step changes in the rate at which we improve our energy efficiency and in low-carbon innovation.The Carbon Trust's proposals recognise the need for us to be smarter in focusing our investments, including to help businesses seize the economic opportunities of the transition."
  • (14) The US and Iran have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when a group of student protesters seized the US embassy in Tehran and took US officials hostage.
  • (15) The militants have also seized a huge chunk of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border, and have declared a self-styled caliphate in the territory they control.
  • (16) But the Tories edited out a crucial final sentence in which Balls told BBC Radio Leeds on 9 January : “But I think we can be tougher and we should be and we will.” Labour seized on the Tory editing of the Balls interview to accuse the Tories of misleading people to defend their refusal to tackle tax avoidance.
  • (17) The Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchynov, had given pro-Russian locals in eastern Ukraine until Monday morning to give up their arms and the buildings they had seized, but instead a pro-Russian mob took over yet another government building in Horlivka that day.
  • (18) The terrorists know that if Iraq and Afghanistan survive their assault, come through their travails, seize the opportunity the future offers, then those countries will stand not just as nations liberated from oppression, but as a lesson to humankind everywhere and a profound antidote to the poison of religious extremism.
  • (19) In 2014, they seized on Osborne’s declaration of a “northern powerhouse” to promote One North, a plan for a £15bn network, dubbed HS3, between Lancashire and Yorkshire.
  • (20) The president’s supporters seized on the incident to plant seeds of confusion and false equivalency: if that Russia story was wrong, perhaps all of them are wrong?