overspell

English

Etymology

over- +‎ spell

Verb

overspell (third-person singular simple present overspells, present participle overspelling, simple past and past participle overspelled)

1. To make spelling mistakes by adding extra letters.
   • 1896, Walter Lecky, Mr. Billy Buttons: A Novel, page 85:

     “Exactly,” said the professor; “he overspells in some places, but it was not for its spelling but for its honesty that I laid it before you, Mr. Trustee.”

   • 1902, The Nation - Volume 75, page 290:

     ...author attempts a little more, and, like Lowell in the 'Biglow Papers,' rather overspells his dialect.

   • 1980, Vernon Buck, Theodore Rappaport, Basic spelling skills: a program for self-instruction, →ISBN, page 80:

     If you overspelled by adding an extra letter or letters, capitalize the letters on each side of the spot where you committed the overspell.

2. To state something in too much detail or too explicitly.
   • 1969, William Cole, The Punch line:

     The main difference between America's humor and England's humour is that they overspell it.

   • 1973, Robert Wakefield, Schwiering and the West, page 32:

     He admits his first attempts were overworked and overspelled, "as though a chicken had walked over them."

   • 1993, Jan Kooiman, Modern Governance: New Government-Society Interactions, →ISBN, page 227:

     On the contrary, exactly those principles are already overspelled.

3. To take over by a magic spell.
   • 1891, Gilbert Beresford, Poems, page 39:

     A river of black gore gushed from the wound, And reeling back he fell supine on earth : A ghastly glamour overspelled his eye, And thro' and over all his mailed skin :

   • 1908, Glasgow Ballad Club, Ballads and Poems, page 42:

     She smiled like one who might have been A daughter of the Fairy Queen ; And all the people who beheld The Vision pass, were overspelled, And, looking in her wondrous eyes, Straight dreamed themselves in Paradise.

   • 2012, John Joseph Adams, Epic: Legends of Fantasy, →ISBN, page 85:

     He must have been overspelled from behind, by surprise; for the last memory he had was of walking through his own woods at evening talking with the trees.