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overly

adverbC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,599 of 15,258neutral

Overly means more than is good or reasonable. Overly cautious, not overly impressed, overly complicated.

It always carries criticism, so nothing is overly good. Not overly is a British understatement meaning not very. Some writers object to the word and prefer over- attached directly, as in overcautious, though both are perfectly standard.

Definitions of overly

  1. 1adverboverlyMore than is good or reasonable.C1

    “The teacher was overly strict and punished children for tiny mistakes.”

overly is a degree.

Where it comes from

From over + -ly.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

overly in the wild

  • The holes are poked in the dough to stop overly large air pockets from forming in the cracker while baking.

    Cracker (food)

  • The rational explanation holds that overly positive prior beliefs about one's skills are the source of false self-assessment.

    Dunning–Kruger effect

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.