Etymologically
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overdose

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈəʊvə(ɹ)ˌdəʊs/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English over- + dose, the noun from the noun and the verb from the verb.[2][3][4][5][6] The noun is from Old French dose or directly from Medieval Latin dosis, from Ancient Greek δόσις (dósis, “a giving; a portion prescribed”), which Galen and other Greek physicians used for an amount of medicine; it comes from the stem of δίδωμι (dídōmi, “to give”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Noun, an excessive dose: 1700, in a new edition of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding.[2][3][4] The verb, to give too large a dose to someone, is recorded the same year in William Burnaby's Reform'd Wife.[2][4] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1680–90.[6]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word was also used figuratively, for too much of anything.[2][4] In the 18th century the verb also meant to give a medicine in too large a dose (1727–78),[2][3] a sense the Shorter Oxford calls now rare.[5] The noun came to mean especially a dangerous or lethal amount of a drug,[2][4] and the intransitive verb, to take an overdose, appeared in the drug culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s: the OED's first record is from 1973, in Robert Ludlum's The Matlock Paper, while Etymonline dates it to 1968.[2][3] Used with on, it now also means to have too much of something, as of shopping.[4][2] The word belongs to a wider pattern, in English since the early 18th century, of describing excess in terms of medical treatment.[7]

Timeline

  • 1700 – noun, an excessive dose.[2][3]
  • 1700 – verb, to give too large a dose to someone.[2][4]
  • 1727 – verb, to give a medicine in too large a dose (obsolete by 1778).[2][3]
  • 1968 – verb, to take an overdose of drugs, in Etymonline.[3]
  • 1973 – the same sense in the OED.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An excessive and dangerous amount of a drug or medicine: He was taken to hospital after an overdose of painkillers.[8][4][2]
  2. Too much of anything.[4][2]

Verb

  1. To take an overdose of a drug.[8][4][2]
  2. To give someone too large a dose, or too many doses.[8][4][2]
  3. (informal, with on) To have or do too much of something: She overdosed on chocolate over the holidays.[4][2]

Word family

  • overdosage

Usage notes

Middle English had an unrelated noun overdose, the upper hangings behind an altar, from Old French dos (“back”).[9]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk
  8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)