Dictionary

overgive en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /əʊvəˈɡɪv/ (UK)

Etymology

From over- + give. Compare Scots overgie (“to relinquish, resign”), Dutch overgeven (“to surrender”), German übergeben (“to hand over, surrender”), Danish overgive (“to surrender”).

Meanings

1. (ambitransitive) To give too lavishly.
2. (obsolete, transitive) To give over, hand over, surrender; to relinquish.
   • For th'heavens have decreëd to displace / The Britons for their sinnes dew punishment / And to the Saxons over-give their government. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
3. (obsolete, transitive) To give up, terminate.

Forms