Overread
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /əʊvəˈɹiËd/
Origin
From Middle English overreden, from Old English oferrǣdan ("to read over; read through; consider"), equivalent to - + read.
Full definition of overread
Verb
- (obsolete) To read over, or peruse. 10th-19th c.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.11:Over the dore thus written she did spye,
Bee bold: she oft and oft it over-red,
Yet could not find what sence it figured …. - (transitive) To interpret something to a greater degree, or in a more positive way, than appropriate; read too in-depth; overinterpret; overanalyze.
- 2005, Hilde Heynen, ‎Gulsum Baydar, Negotiating Domesticity:To overread Plath's houses is to transform these biographical documents into spatial ones.
- 2008, H. Porter Abbott, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative:At the same time, we overread. That is, we find in narratives qualities, motives, moods, ideas, judgments, even events for which there is no direct evidence in the discourse.
- Did we just overread and overstate our place in the world?
- To read too much or excessively.