overgrown

Etymology

It is formed from English over- + grown, after the verb overgrow or the phrase “grow over”.^[1] Merriam-Webster takes it as overgrowen, the past participle of the Middle English verb,^[2] which is formed from grouen (“to grow”) with the prefix;^[3] compare Old English ofergrōwan (“to overgrow”),^[3][4] used in King Alfred's translation of Gregory's “Pastoral Care”.^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Grown too much, too big, of excessive size: before 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[1] Etymonline instead dates the sense "covered with growth" to the late 14th century, and "grown beyond the natural size" to the late 15th.^[4] Merriam-Webster gives the 14th century for the sense "abnormally or excessively grown".^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense "grown over with vegetation" is dated by the OED from before 1450,^[1] but the Middle English Dictionary has it earlier, about 1400, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where a mound is "ouer-growen with gresse" and the Green Chapel is "with erbez ouer-growen"; other early writers used it of a face or a body covered with hair.^[3] The derogatory use for an adult who behaves like a child appeared in 1669, in Dryden's Wild Gallant, and is common in the phrase overgrown schoolboy.^[1][6] The Historical Thesaurus places the word among words for excess and great size as well as among words for being covered with plants.^[7]

Timeline

• before 1398 – grown too much, too large.^[1][7]
• c. 1400 – covered with grass or plants, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.^[3]
• 1669 – of an adult who behaves childishly, in Dryden.^[1][7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Covered with weeds or other plants that have been left to grow unchecked: The old railway line is overgrown with brambles.^[8][6][1][2]
2. Grown too large or beyond the normal size: The town is really an overgrown market village.^[6][2][1]
3. Of an adult, behaving like a child: a pair of overgrown teenagers.^[8][6][1]

Related words

• overgrow
• grow
• grown
• overgrowth

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d 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)
4. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins