overweening

English

Alternative forms
  • over-weening

Pronunciation
  • (UK) IPA(key): /əʊvəˈwiːnɪŋ/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /oʊvɚˈwinɪŋ/
  • Rhymes: -iːnɪŋ

Etymology 1

From Middle English overweninge, equivalent to overween +‎ -ing. Cognate with obsolete Dutch overwanig, overwaand (“presumptuous; cocky; conceited”).

Adjective

overweening (comparative more overweening, superlative most overweening)

  1. Unduly confident; arrogant
    She wins one modeling contest in Montana and suddenly she’s overweening.
    Synonyms: presumptuous, conceited
    • 1623, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5:
      Here's an overweening rogue!
    • 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LXIII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 1000392275, page 175:
      The offer freely given was freely accepted, this gentleman already standing high in their opinion from his conduct to the Count; nor could they doubt that Lady Anne had lost herself many years of pleasant, and probably profitable intercourse with him, from her own acrimony of temper and overweening pride of manners;...
    • 1870, Carl Schurz, George H. Thomas Eulogy
      No success rendered him overweening and no disaster was ever known to stagger his firmness.
    • 1908, Frederic Bancroft and William A. Dunning, A Sketch of Carl Schurz’s Political Career
      The Senate was displaying an overweening hauteur as if it were the government.
  2. Exaggerated, excessive.
    • 2015 January 4, Jonathan Rauch, “How to Make Men Free”, in NY Times‎, retrieved 21050215:
      The idea that an overweening federal government is a threat to both freedom and equality (not to mention prosperity) goes back to Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry and some other fairly respectable personages.
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English overweninge, equivalent to overween +‎ -ing.

Noun

overweening (countable and uncountable, plural overweenings)

  1. (now rare) An excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s abilities; presumption, arrogance.

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

overweening

  1. present participle of overween
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