keel oververb/ˈkiːl ˈəʊvə(ɹ)/

• 1

  nauticaltransportOf a vessel: to roll so far on its side that it cannot recover; to capsize or turn turtle.

  • What a tiny little schooner! But is it not bold to spread both sails? And see, now that we have come round to the wind, how the skiff keels over.
  • [H]is bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's topmost back. Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding foam that blent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate.
• 2

  To collapse in a faint; to black out, to swoon.

  • We should all go inside before somebody keels over from the heat.
  • A huge double-fisted fellow hits Marshall a biff on the ear; the General keels over and catches in his fall another gentleman, who hits a fourth, and the party clinging, all fall through a window, and drop through a partly closed cellar-door.
• 3

  To die.

  • The enemy had planted a piece of ordinance within gun-shot of the fort during the night, and the first thing in the morning they commenced a brisk cannonade, point-blank, against the spot where I was snoring. I turned out pretty smart, and mounted the rampart. The gun was charged again, a fellow stepped forth to touch her off, but before he could apply the match I let him have it, and he keeled over. A second stepped up, snatched the match from the hand of the dying man, but Thimblerig, who had followed me, handed me his rifle, and the next instant the Mexican was stretched on the earth beside the first.
  • A staunch old ship she was too, […] There was no hurry in her building. Mynheer Von Dert hewed the logs for her keel, and slept with his fathers. His son Petrus prepared the keelson, then keeled over, and was laid beside his venerable sire.