overgive
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From over- + give. Compare Scots overgie (“to relinquish, resign”), Dutch overgeven (“to surrender”), German übergeben (“to hand over, surrender”), Danish overgive (“to surrender”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
overgive (third-person singular simple present overgives, present participle overgiving, simple past overgave, past participle overgiven)
- (transitive, intransitive) To give too lavishly.
- (obsolete, transitive) To give over, hand over, surrender; to relinquish. [from 15th c.]
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- For th'heavens have decreëd to displace / The Britons for their sinnes dew punishment / And to the Saxons over-give their government.
- (obsolete, transitive) To give up, terminate. [16th–17th c.]