overgrow

Etymology

over- + grow

verb

1. (intransitive) To grow beyond one's boundaries or containment, or beyond the proper size.
2. (transitive) To grow over; (of one thing) to cause (a second thing) to become overgrown (with or by the first thing).
   The utmost they aimed at doing was thoroughly to clear the old Church of all the corruptions and superstitions which had disfigured it in the course of ages, and which, like the flaunting ivy overgrowing some ancient building … 1886, Edward Meyrick Goulburn, Meditations upon the liturgical gospels for the minor festivals, page 28
   One wall advertised a dense muddle of ivy overgrowing its prefab brick, while a miniature moat with a jerry-built bridge arcing over it snaked around one of the "halls" (as real universities dub their constituent structures). 2002, James Morrison, Broken Fever: Reflections of Gay Boyhood, page 196
   If there is ivy overgrowing things, then we shall clean it up. 2008, J. R. Ward, Lover Enshrined