Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - overture

(overtures) 1. An overture is a piece of music, often one that is the introduction to an opera or play. The programme opened with the overture to Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. N-COUNT; N-IN-NAMES 2. If you make overtures to someone, you behave in a friendly or romantic way towards them. He had lately begun to make clumsy yet endearing overtures of friendship... N-COUNT: usu pl