overworld

English

Etymology

From over- +‎ world. Compare underworld.

Pronunciation

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Noun

overworld (plural overworlds)

1. The celestial world.
   • 1916, Hartley Burr Alexander, North American Mythology‎^[1], Marshall Jones, page 23:

     The Chippewa believe that there are four "layers," or storeys, of the world above, and four of the world below. This is probably only a reflection in the overworld and the nether world of the fourfold structure of the cosmos, since four is everywhere the Indian's sacred number.

   • 1918, Harper's Bazaar 1918-04: Volume 53, Issue 4‎^[2], Hearst Magazines, page 114:

     The hours that followed this amazing resurrection (Steven could think of it as nothing less) were as painful in another way as had been the hours that preceded it; for now it was Radford’s reason that seemed in danger, if not already gone beyond recall, left behind in that underworld or overworld from which his spirit had emerged to reclaim the body that science had pronounced dead. The situation had changed with amazing suddenness, and the girl, now in full possession of herself once more, found that the lover for whom she had wrestled with death, seemed not to remember her, had indeed no memory of anything or person in his immediate surroundings. There was an anxious cloudiness in his eyes which still seemed focused on some supersensible experience, so tremendous that it held for him a reality which life lacked. Such broken sentences as he uttered were strange as this look in his eyes. He seemed at first to see and hear very indistinctly, murmuring that everything was “in fragments, in parts”.

   • 1918, Amélie Rives, The Ghost Garden: A Novel‎^[3], Frederick A. Stokes Company, page 262:

     The hours that followed this amazing resurrection (Steven could think of it as nothing less) were as painful in another way as bad been the hours that preceded it; for now it was Radford's reason that seemed in danger, if not already gone beyond recall, left behind in that underworld or overworld from which his spirit had emerged to reclum the body that science had prononnced dead.

   • 1919, Elaine Austin, Sir Napier Shaw, Manual of Meteorology‎^[4], Cambridge University Press, Macmillan, Maruzen Company, page 316:

     The separation of the atmosphere into underworld and overworld/ Let us call that part of the atmosphere which is below the specified isentropic surface the "underworld," which must provide its own wind-system, and the part above it the "overworld," the air of which can flow freely along the isentrope but not across it. Our observation of the upper circulation only begins with the height of the anemometer; below it all is turbulence and irregular motion due to the conflict of the underworld with the overworld. By the law of entropy except for the mechanical effect of vis viva, the living force of turbulence, no air can pass the barrier, from the underworld to the overworld, without the passport, label or ticket of a supply of heat, and the ticket has to be given up by the air at the barrier in order to secure return to the underworld.

   • 1934, F. A. Spencer, Beyond Damascus‎^[5], Harper& Brothers Publishers, page 119:

     “O sweet Adonis, none but thee of the children of gods and men ’Twixt overworld and underworld doth pass and pass again... Adonis sweet, Adonis dear,/ Be gracious for another year;/ Thou’rt welcome to thine own alway,/ And welcome we'll both cry to-day/ And next Adonis-tide.’’

   • 1935, Priscilla Thouless, Modern Poetic Drama‎^[6], Basil Blackwell, page 119:

     The play opens with a discussion by the spirits in the Overworld about the nature of the universe. The spirit of the Years speaks of the principle of the Universe: Like a knitter drowsed./Whose fingers play in skilled unmindfulness./The Will has woven with an absent heed Since life first was;/ and ever will so weave.

   • 1951, Naomi Replansky, “The Sightseers” in Ring Song (published 1952):

     This is a steaming underworld:
     Where are the writhings? Where the cries?
     We came down from our overworld
     To see them writhe, to hear their cries.

2. The community of law-abiding citizens.

   Antonym: underworld

3. (video games)
   1. An overarching map or region connecting various disparate towns, dungeons, or stages, usually represented on it by icons.
   2. The portion of a game that is set above ground, as opposed to underground caves etc.

      Antonym: underworld

      • 2017, Alyssa Aska, Introduction to the Study of Video Game Music, page 88:

        The overworld theme for the original Super Mario Bros. remains one of the most recognizable video game tunes to date.

   3. (roleplaying games) The entirety of the world where the player can walk around, as opposed to separate game sections for battles, puzzles, etc.

Derived terms

• overworld map

See also

• hub world
• wilderness

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “overworld”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

Anagrams

• word-lover