Dictionary

overspell en · VERB

Etymology

From over- + spell.

Meanings

1. To make spelling mistakes by adding extra letters.
   • If you overspelled by adding an extra letter or letters, capitalize the letters on each side of the spot where you committed the overspell. 1980, Vernon Buck, Theodore Rappaport, Basic spelling skills: a program for self-instruction, →ISBN, page 80:
   • ...author attempts a little more, and, like Lowell in the 'Biglow Papers,' rather overspells his dialect. 1902, The Nation - Volume 75, page 290:
   • “Exactly,” said the professor; “he overspells in some places, but it was not for its spelling but for its honesty that I laid it before you, Mr. Trustee.” 1896, Walter Lecky, Mr. Billy Buttons: A Novel, page 85:
2. To state something in too much detail or too explicitly.
   • The main difference between America's humor and England's humour is that they overspell it. 1969, William Cole, The Punch line:
   • He admits his first attempts were overworked and overspelled, "as though a chicken had walked over them." 1973, Robert Wakefield, Schwiering and the West, page 32:
   • On the contrary, exactly those principles are already overspelled. 1993, Jan Kooiman, Modern Governance: New Government-Society Interactions, →ISBN, page 227:
3. To take over by a magic spell.
   • He must have been overspelled from behind, by surprise; for the last memory he had was of walking through his own woods at evening talking with the trees. 2012, John Joseph Adams, Epic: Legends of Fantasy, →ISBN, page 85:
   • A river of black gore gushed from the wound, And reeling back he fell supine on earth : A ghastly glamour overspelled his eye, And thro' and over all his mailed skin : 1891, Gilbert Beresford, Poems, page 39:
   • She smiled like one who might have been A daughter of the Fairy Queen ; And all the people who beheld The Vision pass, were overspelled, And, looking in her wondrous eyes, Straight dreamed themselves in Paradise. 1908, Glasgow Ballad Club, Ballads and Poems, page 42:

Forms