overstretch

English

Etymology

From Middle English overstrecchen, corresponding to over- +‎ stretch. Compare Dutch overstrekken (“to overstretch”), German überstrecken (“to overstretch”).

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛtʃ

Verb

overstretch (third-person singular simple present overstretches, present participle overstretching, simple past and past participle overstretched)

1. To stretch too far.
   • 1594 (first publication), Christopher Marlow[e], The Trovblesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edvvard the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     The idle triumphes, maskes, lasciuious showes
     And prodigall gifts bestowed on Gaueston,
     Haue drawne thy treasure drie, and made thee weake,
     The murmuring commons ouerstretched hath.

   • 1640, Charles I of England, Speech given to the Lords and Commons, at the Benquetting-House in White-Hall, 25 January, 1640, in The Works of King Charles the Martyr, London: Ric[hard] Chiswell, p. 169,^[1]

     If some of [the Bishops] have overstretched their power, and incroached too much upon the Temporalty, if it be so, I shall not be unwilling these things should be redressed and reformed […]

   • 1653, Nicholas Culpeper, Pharmacopœia Londinensis, or, The London Dispensatory‎^[2], London: Peter Cole, page 50:

     […] outwardly in Oyls or Oyntments, it mightily helps such members as are out of joynt or overstretched.

   • 1783, Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Dublin: Whitestone et al., Volume 1, Lecture 16, p. 380,^[3]

     How far a Hyperbole, supposing it properly introduced, may be safely carried without overstretching it; what is the proper measure and boundary of this figure, cannot, as far as I know, be ascertained by any precise rule.

2. To stretch over something.

Derived terms

• overstretched (adjective)

Noun

overstretch (plural overstretches)

1. The act of stretching something too far or beyond available resources.