Dictionary

overween en · VERB

Etymology

From Middle English overwēnen (“to be presumptuous, be over-confident; presume”), from Old English oferwennan and oferwenian (“to be proud, become insolent, or presumptuous”), equivalent to over- + ween.

Meanings

1. (ergative) To think too highly or arrogantly of (oneself).
   • and they that overween, / And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen, 1644, Milton, Sonnet IX:
   • The clouds on Futurity Day bore out in a general way this prognostication. But he overweened himself. 2005, A. J. Liebling, Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer, page 327:
2. To make or render arrogant and overweening.
   • There is, I suppose, the cheap drama of man sticking his nose into an area where it does little good except to expand his already overweened vanity. 1987 October, Field & Stream, volume 92, number 6, page 24:
   • Sometimes we manage to come up with original ways of viewing a world hardened, stratified, overweened by its own power, a world which believes itself as omnipotent as its technological achievements might seem to imply. 2009, Ariel Dorfman, The Empire's Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds, page 6:
3. (proscribed) To overwhelm.
   • The invasion of a vast enemy host upon the unprepared is unstoppable; the huge phalanx of tanks overweens our small army of trucks and rifles; […] 2003, Michael Gelven, What happens to us when we think: transformation and reality, page 44:

Forms

Deriveds

overweening · overweener