Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Excessively nervous or excited; agitated.
- adj. Extremely elaborate or ornate; overdone: overwrought prose style.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Worked too hard or too much.
- Worked up or excited to excess; overexcited: as overwrought feelings, imagination, etc.
- Worked all over; covered with decorative work: as, a garment overwrought with embroidered flowers.
- Labored or elaborated to excess; overdone.
Wiktionary
- adj. in a state of excessive nervousness, excitement, or anger; Extremely tense, anxious, or upset; filled with emotion, emotional; uneasy.
- adj. elaborate; overdone.
GNU Webster's 1913
- Wrought upon excessively; overworked.
- Extremely agitated or excited; overexcited; -- of people.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. deeply agitated especially from emotion
Etymologies
- past participle of overwork (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Best of all, she's got a playful sensibility that keeps the covers from getting bogged down in overwrought gravitas, no matter the subject.”
“That last label is the funniest of the three because a story about a notorious miser visited by four ghosts who scare the hell out of him to make him change his life is by definition overwrought.”
The Huffington Post: Lev Raphael: Does A Christmas Carol Really Need to be Rescued?
“Tademy's bold, controlled account of these horrific events never shies away from the gruesome facts, or becomes overwrought, which is a remarkable feat considering her emotional attachment to the story and its characters.”
Red River: Summary and book reviews of Red River by Lalita Tademy.
“I would be so excited about my latest acquisition that I would start to read in the car a habit that always triggered my motion sickness, but I didn't care, and then, the second I got home, sign my name in overwrought cursive on the inside cover.”
“This is the kind of overwrought, underreported business story I expect to see in Fortune magazine, not my local business journal.”
“Not sure how that became "overwrought" in your mind, but maybe we've misunderstood each other.”
Science fiction's subordination - Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, and Games
“Opera Tattler finds the characters caricatures and the production "overwrought," with the music unfocussed and too much in the background.”
“Pleased to see that I was at "overwrought" before J. Hoberman got there.”
“And insofar as we might say that the poetry of emotion is synonymous with its expression in language, then it becomes clear that writing from a place of the 'overwrought', the 'cheap', the 'excessive', the 'insufficient' and the 'incapable' is actually also writing from a place of abjection women writers are consigned to in a kind of categorical quarantine.”
“On the day it ran, Executive Editor Bill Keller, not exactly chastened, called criticism of the Times' coverage "overwrought" and said that the main reason it even published the note was because the controversy had become a "distraction.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘overwrought’.
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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It's Over: A Beginning
Terms that start with the string over-, beginning with overanxious.
Your entries are welcome.
overanxious, overachiever, oversimplified, overdone, overaccentuate, overact, overadjustment, overage, overaggressive, overalert, overalls, overambitious and 138 more...
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Naresh_Gre2
convoke, cosset, coterie, declaim, distaff, doff, dovetail, droll, dyspeptic, egress, ersatz, euphemism and 108 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 481 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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Good Words
fenestering, cetic, immanent, quickening, archetypal, shibboleth, soma, wetware, heritable, Apotheosis, halcyon, cellar door and 482 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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kingofbash's Words
bash, poleaxed, salacious, libertine, charlatan, aplomb, fortuitous, finagle, apoplectic, debutante, carte blanche, aardvark and 472 more...
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nail01
sentimental, eloquent, inevitable, pretentious, verbose, aptly, stoically, grandiloquent, valedictory, assiduous, exorbitant, wreaked and 154 more...
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ADW2
nudnik, temper, intercalate, cleave, scowl, chapfallen, malapropos, disport, annals, paean, paradisiacal, whet and 362 more...
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1st cut
abeyance, abscission, accretion, abyss, acidulous, adulterate, adumbrate, aerie, ameliorate, anachoronistic, analgesia, anodyne and 315 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for overwrought.
bilby Top citation, qroqqa. What a show that was! Jul 30, 2008
qroqqa Jim: Do any of them say anything other than tired and emotional?
Bernard: William Hickey said you were overwrought, Minister.
Jim: Just overwrought, nothing about being drunk.
Bernard: Just overwrought.
Sir Humphrey: Overwrought as a newt actually.
—'The Economy Drive', Yes Minister
Jul 30, 2008