The answer is PASS, four letters. Overtake in everyday use means drawing level with something moving the same way and then going by it, and pass is the flattest synonym available. Three blank squares change the picture completely, because that length belongs to racing and wants LAP.
Lapping is not the same act as passing
This is the distinction that catches people, and it is worth getting straight. On a closed circuit the leader eventually completes a full extra lap and arrives back at the slowest runners, who are now an entire circuit behind. Going by them is an overtake in the plain physical sense, yet the two cars are not fighting over the same position at all. Those drivers are described as lapped, or as being a lap down.
Motor racing has built procedure around it. Slower cars are called backmarkers, and a driver about to be caught by the leader is shown blue flags, which in Formula One carry an obligation to let the faster car through at the first safe opportunity. Distance running works the same way without the flags: in a twenty five lap race on the track, the front group routinely runs through the back of the field more than once.
For solving purposes the takeaway is mechanical. Three squares plus anything about circuits, tracks, laps or racing means the grid wants the racing verb, not the general one.
The sense that stopped being current
There is an older use of the verb in which the thing doing the overtaking is not moving at all in the ordinary sense. A storm, an illness or a misfortune could overtake a traveller, meaning it came upon them suddenly from behind. That reading has drained out of modern speech but never left the language entirely, which is how BEFALL earns a place on the answer list.
Cryptic setters keep it in rotation precisely because it lets them write an ominous surface that still parses as a fair definition. If six squares are refusing every speed related word you own, test the gloomy reading.
What fits each slot length
| Letters | Answer | Surface that calls for it |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | LAP | Circuits, tracks, motorsport |
| 4 | PASS | General overtaking |
| 5 | CATCH | Drawing level rather than going by |
| 6 | OUTRUN | Speed is the emphasis |
| 6 | BEFALL | The archaic, ominous reading |
| 7 | OUTPACE | Longer slot, same idea as OUTRUN |
| 8 | OVERHAUL | British sporting usage |
In a cryptic it may not be a definition at all
British setters treat this word as machinery. Over can signal a reversal in an across entry, or indicate that one string of letters sits above another in a down entry. Take can instruct you to remove letters, or stand in for a synonym such as nick or rob. A cryptic clue containing overtake is often issuing instructions rather than offering a meaning.
The answer word carries its own baggage too. PASS is one of the most overworked entries in the whole grid, covering a gap between mountains, a free ticket, a declined bid at the bridge table and a thrown ball, so it appears far more often than this particular definition would suggest. When a synonym refuses to agree with the crossings, stop arguing with the definition and reread the clue as a set of operations.
Frequently asked questions
What is the answer to the overtake crossword clue?
PASS, four letters, for the ordinary sense of drawing level with something and then going by it. A three-letter slot changes the answer to LAP, which belongs to circuit racing. Longer slots take OUTRUN, BEFALL, OUTPACE or OVERHAUL depending on the surface reading.
Why is LAP an answer for overtake?
On a closed circuit, a leader who completes a full extra lap catches the back of the field again and passes cars already a whole circuit behind. Those drivers are said to be lapped. It is the same physical overtake, but with a very different competitive meaning.
What does BEFALL have to do with overtaking?
It preserves an older sense of the verb. In earlier English a storm, a sickness or a misfortune could overtake a person, meaning it came upon them suddenly. That reading has left ordinary speech but survives in cryptics, usually attached to a gloomy surface reading.
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