overjoy
English
Etymology
over- + joy
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -ɔɪ
Verb
overjoy (third-person singular simple present overjoys, present participle overjoying, simple past and past participle overjoyed)
- (transitive) To give great joy, delight or pleasure to.
- The prospect of writing three exams in a row without a break does not overjoy me.
- 1594 (first publication), Christopher Marlow[e], The Trovblesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edvvard the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, OCLC 837836359, (please specify the page):
- This salutation ouerioyes my heart.
- c. 1612–1615?, John Fletcher; Francis Beaumont; revised by Philip Massinger, “Loves Cure or, The Martial Maid”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, OCLC 3083972, Act V, scene ii, page 143:
- In overjoying me, you are grown sad;
- 1711, Alexander Pope, Letter to Henry Cromwell dated 25 June, 1711, in Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, London: E. Curll, 1735, Volume 2, p. 10,
- If my Letter pleas’d you, your’s overjoy’d me;
- (transitive, rare) To give too much joy to.
- 1898, Thomas Hardy “To an Orphan Child” in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, New York and London: Harper, p. 163,
- Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother’s;
- Hers couldst thou wholly be,
- My light in thee would outglow all in others;
- She would relive to me.
- But niggard Nature’s trick of birth
- Bars, lest she overjoy,
- Renewal of the loved on earth
- Save with alloy.
- 1898, Thomas Hardy “To an Orphan Child” in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, New York and London: Harper, p. 163,
- (intransitive, obsolete) To take too much pleasure (in something).
- 1598, John Wilbye, The First Set of English Madrigals, London: Thomas Este, Madrigal ,
- Your deeds my hart surchargd with ouerioying:
- 1618, Joseph Hall, Contemplations upon the Principall Passages of the Holy Story, London: Henry Fetherstone, Volume 4, p. 42,
- it is hard not to ouer-ioy in a sudden prosperitie, and, to vse happinesse is no lesse difficult, then to forbeare it
- 1685, Thomas Manton, “A Description of the True Circumcision” in Several Discourses Tending to Promote Peace and Holiness among Christians, London: Jonathan Robinson, p. 113,
- That he doth not over-joy in worldly Comforts, nor over-grieve for worldly Losses.
- 1598, John Wilbye, The First Set of English Madrigals, London: Thomas Este, Madrigal ,
Derived terms
- overjoyed
Noun
overjoy
- Very great joy.
- Synonym: ecstasy
- 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene i]:
- to salute my king / With ruder terms, such as my wit affords / And over-joy of heart doth minister
- a. 1631, John Donne, Letter to Robert Karre in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, London: Richard Marriot, 1651, p. 299,
- I beginne to bee past hope of dying: And I feele that a little ragge of Monte Magor, which I read last time I was in your Chamber, hath wrought prophetically upon mee, which is, that Death came so fast towards mee, that the over-joy of that recovered mee.
- 1835, William Wordsworth, “The Russian Fugitive” in Yarrow Revisited, and Other Poems, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, p. 143,
- Amazement rose to pain, / and over-joy produced a fear / Of something void and vain,
- 1975, Jesse Stuart, “No Warning from the Wind” in The World of Jesse Stuart: Selected Poems, New York: McGraw-Hill, p. 158,
- The katydids express their overjoy / Down in knee-high maturing August grasses;
- Excessive joy.
- 1963, B. A. Saletore, Ancient Indian Political Thought and Institutions, Asia Publishing House, p. 318,
- Restraint of the organs of sense, on which success in study and discipline depends, can be enforced by abandoning lust, anger, greed, vanity (māna), haughtiness (mada) and overjoy (harṣa).
- 1991, Robert F. Morneau, Mantras from a Poet: Jessica Powers, Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, p. 5,
- The knowledge that some are deprived tempers overjoy or overdesire.
- 2006, Zhi Gang Sha, Soul Mind Body Medicine, Novato, CA: New World Library, Chapter 6, p. 158,
- The emotional extremes of overexcitement, overjoy, depression, and anxiety are all blockages in the Message Center.
- 1963, B. A. Saletore, Ancient Indian Political Thought and Institutions, Asia Publishing House, p. 318,