superimpose
Formssuperimposes, superimposing, superimposed
- 1To lay one object over another, typically in a way that lets both remain visible.
Like sliding a transparent overlay onto a photograph so both the overlay and the picture below show at once.
The graphic designer superimposed her signature onto each printed copy.
Filmmakers superimpose subtitles over the footage during editing.
Note
Built plainly from super- and impose, the verb takes a direct object and a preposition naming the surface underneath: you superimpose a logo over an image, or text onto a picture. Alex Hern, explaining the Doge meme in The Guardian in 2014, writes of superimposing broken English "on to" photographs of shiba inus. Overlay and superpose are its closest synonyms.
- 2In geology, to establish a structural pattern, such as a river system, across an area in a way that does not follow the older structures beneath it.
Like a stencil pattern pressed onto a surface, the design holding its shape no matter what lies underneath.
The drainage network superimposed itself on the region, ignoring the folded rock layers beneath.
Rivers that superimpose their courses onto ancient bedrock often cut deep gorges.
Note
Geologists use the word for a pattern that arrives from above instead of growing out of the rock beneath. A drainage pattern laid out on a higher surface keeps its course as erosion cuts down, so it ends up slicing across older structures it was never shaped by. This is the everyday "lay over" sense applied to the history of a landscape.
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Origin
Formed from the prefix super- combined with impose.