overread
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English overreden, from Old English oferrǣdan (“to read over; read through; consider”), equivalent to over- + read.
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
overread (third-person singular simple present overreads, present participle overreading, simple past and past participle overread)
- (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 […].
- (transitive) To interpret something to a greater degree, or in a more positive way, than appropriate; read too in-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[1]:
- Did we just overread and overstate our place in the world?
- To read too much or excessively.
Antonyms edit
Adjective edit
overread (comparative more overread, superlative most overread)
- Having read too much.