| a prefixal use of over, preposition, adverb, or adjective, occurring in various senses in compounds (overboard; overcoat; overhang; overlap; overlord; overrun; overthrow), and especially employed, with the sense of “over the limit,” “to excess,” “too much,” “too,” to form verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and nouns (overact; overcapitalize; overcrowd; overfull; overmuch; oversupply; overweight), and many others, mostly self-explanatory: a hyphen, which is commonly absent from old or well-established formations, is sometimes used in new coinages or in any words whose component parts it may be desirable to set off distinctly. |
| over- pref.
[Middle English, from Old English ofer-; see uper in Indo-European roots.] Usage Note: Many compounds other than those entered here may be formed with over-. In forming compounds, over- is joined with the following element without space or a hyphen: overachieve, overrepresented. Note, however, that over may combine with other words as a unit modifier. In such cases the words are joined by hyphens: over-the-counter medication. |
