overween

English

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.

Verb

overween (third-person singular simple present overweens, present participle overweening, simple past and past participle overweened)

1. (ergative) To think too highly or arrogantly of (oneself).
   • 1644, Milton, Sonnet IX:

     and they that overween, / And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,

   • 2005, A. J. Liebling, Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer, page 327:

     The clouds on Futurity Day bore out in a general way this prognostication. But he overweened himself.

2. To make or render arrogant and overweening.
   • 1987 October, Field & Stream, volume 92, number 6, page 24:

     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.

   • 2009, Ariel Dorfman, The Empire's Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds, page 6:

     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.

3. (proscribed) To overwhelm.
   • 2003, Michael Gelven, What happens to us when we think: transformation and reality, page 44:

     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; […]

Derived terms

• overweening

References

• Webster 1913