overread

English

Etymology

From Middle English overreden, from Old English oferrǣdan (“to read over; read through; consider”), equivalent to over- +‎ read.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əʊvəˈɹiːd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

  • (past tense, past participle, adjective) IPA^(key): /əʊvəˈɹɛd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Verb

overread (third-person singular simple present overreads, present participle overreading, simple past and past participle overread)

1. (obsolete) To read over, or peruse. [10th–19th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Over the dore thus written she did spye, / Bee bold: she oft and oft it over-red, / Yet could not find what sence it figured […] .

2. (ambitransitive) To interpret something to a greater degree, or in a more positive way, than appropriate; read in too much depth; overinterpret; overanalyze.
   • 2005, Hilde Heynen, Gulsum Baydar, Negotiating Domesticity:

     To overread Plath's houses is to transform these biographical documents into spatial ones.

   • 2008, H. Porter Abbott, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative:

     At the same time, we overread. That is, we find in narratives qualities, motives, moods, ideas, judgments, even events for which there is no direct evidence in the discourse.

   • 2009 January 20, Heather Timmons, Jeremy Kahn, “Past Graft Is Tainting New India”, in New York Times‎:

     Did we just overread and overstate our place in the world?

3. To read too much or excessively. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Antonyms

• underread

Derived terms

• overreader

Adjective

overread (comparative more overread, superlative most overread)

1. Having read too much.

Anagrams

• overdare, overdear, read over