Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Presumptuously arrogant; overbearing.
- adjective Excessive; immoderate.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Presumption; arrogance.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Unduly confident; arrogant; presumptuous; conceited.
- noun Conceit; arrogance.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Unduly
confident ;arrogant ;presumptuous ;conceited . - adjective
Exaggerated ,excessive . - noun An excessively high opinion of oneself or one's abilities;
presumption ,arrogance . - verb Present participle of
overween .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective unrestrained, especially with regard to feelings
- adjective presumptuously arrogant
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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His stolid instinctive conservatism grovels before the tyrant rule of routine, despite that turbulent and licentious independence which ever suggests revolt against the ruler: his mental torpidity, founded upon physical indolence, renders immediate action and all manner of exertion distasteful: his conscious weakness shows itself in overweening arrogance and intolerance.
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She had offered him all the sacrifices that he did not want, and she stood before him in overweening confidence that she ran no other risks than those she had foreseen.
Indiana 1900
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Another extraordinary characteristic of the book is its combination of supreme humility with what the enemy might describe as overweening arrogance.
Darkest India A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" Commissioner Booth-Tucker 1891
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Are you just some populist slave, some kind of overweening and colicky infant in search of surrogate mamas and papas, role models, and the like?
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I get to use the word "overweening" for something!
Archive 2007-06-01 2007
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They suffered from the ancient Greek disease of hubris, a kind of overweening arrogance.
The Very Best Men—Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA 1995
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The ancient Greeks had a word for it: hubris, which might be defined as a kind of overweening pride, one that impelled mere mortals to believe they could act like gods.
Antiwar.com Original 2009
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The ancient Greeks had a word for it: hubris, which might be defined as a kind of overweening pride, one that impelled mere mortals to believe they could act like gods.
Antiwar.com Original 2009
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Seventy or so years ago the celebrated diarist James Lees-Milne wrote this: 'It became clear he was a man of overweening egotism.
Roebuck on Mosley Gordon McCabe 2009
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Reading the interview, one is struck, as always, by the overweening vanity of Max's position.
The vanity of Max Mosley Gordon McCabe 2009
brtom commented on the word overweening
"... who for all his overweening bumptiousness in things scientific can scarcely distinguish an acid from an alkali ..."
Joyce, Ulysses, 14
January 22, 2007
hernesheir commented on the word overweening
"...name is suggestive of a past age of psychochemical experimentation -- this fossil cautions against overweening confidence of paleontologists who think they know how ancient animals lived" - Commentary at the website of Natural Resources Canada regarding the story of the strange fossil Hallucigenia.
June 27, 2010