overprize

English

Etymology

From over- +‎ prize. See overpraise.

Verb

overprize (third-person singular simple present overprizes, present participle overprizing, simple past and past participle overprized)

1. (transitive) To prize excessively; to overvalue.
   • 1651, Henry Wotton, “A Surveigh of Education”, in Reliquiae Wottonianae‎, London: R. Marriot, page 320:

     […] a very pardonable facility in the Parents themselves to overprize their own Children, while thy behold them through the vapors of affection which alter the appearance […]

   • 1777, Granville Sharp, A Tract on the Law of Nature, and Principles of Action in Man, London: B. White and E. & C. Dilly, p. 120, note 42,

     A Man apt to over-prize himself, and jealous withal of contempt, of wrong, or of gross abuse, is not so easily appeased with streams of blood, as a calm and gentle spirit is with an ingenuous acknowledgment of wrongs done, or with a courteous answer for wrongs suspected.

   • 1862, Henry Chorley, “The Year 1838”, in Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections‎, volume I, London: Hurst & Blackett, pages 141–142:

     [Mr. Balfe] has the gift—now rare, in late days—of melody, and a certain facile humour for the stage, which can hardly be over-prized.

   • 1983, John Gardner (American writer), On Becoming a Novelist, Open Road Media, 2010, Part II,

     Another reason workshops become “workshoppy” is that often teachers slide unconsciously into overprizing the kind of narrative writing that teaches well, undervaluing and even dismissing work that does not.

References

• “overprize”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.