Definition of "overjoy"
overjoy
verb
third-person singular simple present overjoys, present participle overjoying, simple past and past participle overjoyed
(transitive) To give great joy, delight or pleasure to.
Quotations
This salutation ouerioyes my heart.
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, (please specify the page)
(transitive, rare) To give too much joy to.
Quotations
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 birthBars, lest she overjoy,Renewal of the loved on earthSave with alloy.
1898, Thomas Hardy, “To an Orphan Child”, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, New York and London: Harper, page 163
noun
Quotations
to salute my king / With ruder terms, such as my wit affords / And over-joy of heart doth minister
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, [Act I, scene i]
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.
a. 1631, John Donne, Letter to Robert Karre in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, London: Richard Marriot, 1651, p. 299
Quotations