overprize

English

Etymology

From over- +‎ prize. See overpraise.

Verb

overprize (third-person singular simple present overprizes, present participle overprizing, simple past and past participle overprized)

1. (transitive) To prize excessively; to overvalue.
   • 1651, Henry Wotton, “A Surveigh of Education”, in Reliquiae Wottonianae‎^[1], London: R. Marriot, page 320:

     […] a very pardonable facility in the Parents themselves to overprize their own Children, while thy behold them through the vapors of affection which alter the appearance […]

   • 1777, Granville Sharp, A Tract on the Law of Nature, and Principles of Action in Man, London: B. White and E. & C. Dilly, p. 120, note 42,^[2]

     A Man apt to over-prize himself, and jealous withal of contempt, of wrong, or of gross abuse, is not so easily appeased with streams of blood, as a calm and gentle spirit is with an ingenuous acknowledgment of wrongs done, or with a courteous answer for wrongs suspected.

   • 1862, Henry Chorley, “The Year 1838”, in Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections‎^[3], volume I, London: Hurst & Blackett, pages 141–142:

     [Mr. Balfe] has the gift—now rare, in late days—of melody, and a certain facile humour for the stage, which can hardly be over-prized.

   • 1983, John Gardner (American writer), On Becoming a Novelist, Open Road Media, 2010, Part II,^[4]

     Another reason workshops become “workshoppy” is that often teachers slide unconsciously into overprizing the kind of narrative writing that teaches well, undervaluing and even dismissing work that does not.

References

• “overprize”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.