overaggressive

English

Etymology

From over- +‎ aggressive.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛsɪv

Adjective

overaggressive (comparative more overaggressive, superlative most overaggressive)

1. Overly aggressive; of a personality, action or behavior having excessive aggression.
   • 1916, D. George Dery, Under the Big Dipper‎, Brentano's, page 36:

     An American had meant to him an overaggressive boor; but in this young Morton he found as fine a gentleman as even he could wish for, a man also without the flaws of artificial mannerisms.

   • 1920, The Saturday Evening Post 1920-08-07: Volume 193, Issue 6‎, Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society, page 50:

     If the field agent who finds himself in this situation has still in him a trace of the same attitude shown by the man with whom he is dealing—that of suspicion and an overaggressive determination not to be imposed upon—then it becomes virtually certain that the field agent is going to fail to be a true interpreter of the real attitude of the income-tax unit, which is that he is not out to get scalps or make a showing but to see to it that both the taxpayer and the Government get full justice in the adjustment of their income-tax transactions.

   • 1923, National Electragist 1923-03: Volume 22, Issue 5‎, Penton Business Media, Penton Media Incorporated, page 33:

     Aggressiveness is perhaps the quality around which most danger centres—it is the thin ice of salesmanship. The line that divides the spineless man from the bulldog type is not well defined. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Likewise’ the overaggressive plunge, when all the rules of salesmanship tell them to tread softly.

   • 1927, Mental Hygiene 1927-01: Volume 11, Issue 1, National Mental Health Association, page 17:

     The attitudes formed at this early stage of life become integral factors of the mature personality. The final result may be either of two types: the submissive, retiring personality, which is a direct expression of a feeling of inferiority, or the overaggressive, dominating personality, which is at bottom only an attempt to escape from inferiority feelings through compensatory activities.

   • 1935, Herbert Spencer Jennings, Readings In Educational Psychology‎, page 514:

     The quality of the school’s influence for mental hygiene is determined in no small measure by the personal characteristics of its teachers. The attitudes and habits of adjustment that the pupil learns depend more on the social relationships of the classroom than on the more academic aspects of education. Consequently, a teacher whose traits of personality call forth unfavorable reactions from the students can wreck the best-planned curricular provisions for mental health. Some teachers are overaggressive in their actions toward pupils, bullying them, looking for small infractions of the rules, and constantly asserting their own mastery and superiority, often by sarcastic and critical comments.

Derived terms

• overaggressively
• overaggressiveness