overbrow

English

Etymology

over- +‎ brow

Pronunciation

(verb) IPA^(key): /ˌəʊvə(ɹ)ˈbɹaʊ/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
(noun) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊvə(ɹ)bɹaʊ/
Audio (Southern England) (file)

Verb

overbrow (third-person singular simple present overbrows, present participle overbrowing, simple past and past participle overbrowed)

(poetic, transitive) To hang over like a brow; to impend over.
- 1836, A. K. Killmister, The Oakleigh Shooting Code, page vii:
  The prints of the Matlock cliffs on the Derwent, which every body has seen, will give the stranger some idea of the rocks which overbrow the partially wooded ravines, and glens down which the streams tributary to the Dove descend.
- 1852, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Woods in Winter", in The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  With solemn feet I tread the hill, That overbrows the lonely vale
- 18000, William Wordsworth, Michael
  Did with a huge projection overbrow
  Large space beneath.

Boy with a pronounced overbrow

Noun

overbrow (plural overbrows)

The area immediately above the eyebrow and below the forehead.
- 1649, Godfridus, The Knowledge of Things Unknown, page 155:
  If the man thall have a Mole on the overbrow, then let fuch a perfon refrayne from marriage altogether , or all his life time; for that such a person (if he marry) shall have five wives in his lifetime.
- 1914, Tennessee Bar Association, Proceedings of the Annual Session of the Bar Association of Tennessee, page 96:
  I could not say that he didn't give the matter consideration, but while I noticed once in a while, by the lifting of an eyebrow or a slight corrugation of the overbrow, that the gubernatorial mind seemed to have some slight premonitory symptom of the induction of a thought, it passed off without apparent fruition.
- 2016, Anne Boles Levy, The Well of Prayers:
  As I translated, however, Valeo's face contorted, his overbrow furrowing as he picked at his food.
A projecting shelf of rock on the face of a cliff.
- 1948, The Canadian Mining and Metallurgical Bulletin, page 10:
  For reasons of safety it was decided to drill off the overbrow and to blast it at one time to break 30,000 tons.

References

overbrow in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913