Surface vs Overlay - What's the difference?

Surface is a related term of overlay.

As verbs the difference between surface and overlay

is that surface is while overlay is to lay, or spread, something over or across; to cover.

As a noun overlay is

(printing) a piece of paper pasted upon the tympan sheet to improve the impression by making it stronger at a particular place.

surface

English

Noun

(en noun)

The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,

The outside hull of a tangible object.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The climate of Tibet: Pole-land , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.}}

(lb) Outward or external appearance.

*(Vicesimus Knox) (1752-1821)

*:Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface .

*:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.

The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.

(lb) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.

:(Stocqueler)

Synonyms

* overside * superfice (archaic)

Derived terms

* surface mail * surficial

Verb

To provide something with a surface.

To apply a surface to something.

To rise to the surface.

To come out of hiding.

For information or facts to become known.

To work a mine near the surface.

To appear or be found.

overlay

English

Verb

To lay, or spread, something over or across; to cover.

* Spenser

as when a cloud his beams doth overlay

* Milton

framed of cedar overlaid with gold

To overwhelm; to press excessively upon.

* Sir Walter Raleigh

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

* Bible, 1 Kings iii. 19

This woman's child died in the night, because she overlaid it.

* Dryden

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?

(printing) To put an on.

Noun

(en noun)

(printing) A piece of paper pasted upon the tympan sheet to improve the impression by making it stronger at a particular place.

(betting) Odds which are set higher than expected or warranted. Favorable odds.

(horse racing) A horse going off at higher odds than it appears to warrant, based on its past performances.

A decal attached to a computer keyboard to relabel the keys.

* 1994 , Roger Frost, The IT in Secondary Science Book (page 56)

The keyboard overlay can be a memory jogger and a great help with spelling. In this way the keyboard makes word processing more accessible to younger as well as special needs children.

Anagrams

* English heteronyms