overflourish

overflourish

English

Etymology

over- +‎ flourish

Verb

overflourish (third-person singular simple present overflourishes, present participle overflourishing, simple past and past participle overflourished)

1. (obsolete) To make excessive display or flourish of.
   • 1697, Jeremy Collier, Essays upon Several Moral Subjects

     Men, like falle Glasses, generally represent their Complexion better than Nature has made it. And as they are likely to overflourish their own Case, ſo their Flattery is hardest to be discover'd .

2. (obsolete) To embellish with outward ornaments or flourishes; to varnish over.
   • c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or VVhat You VVill”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene iv]:

     the beauteous evil / Are empty trunks o'erflourished by the devil

References

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