The overspill lemma says that if is a Nonstandard model of Peano arithmetic and a definable property , possibly with parameters from , holds for every standard natural number, then it also holds for some nonstandard element of .
Let
If had no nonstandard member, its complement would be nonempty. The least-number principle in Peano arithmetic would give a least . Because every standard number belongs to , the element would be nonstandard and nonzero. Its predecessor would also be nonstandard, so the supposition gives , whereas the minimality of gives . This contradiction proves that contains a nonstandard element.
Applying this argument to gives the useful stronger form: there is a nonstandard such that holds for every .