The AI-powered English dictionary
third-person singular simple present overweens, present participle overweening, simple past and past participle overweened
(ergative) To think too highly or arrogantly of (oneself). quotations examples
and they that overween, / And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,
1644, Milton, Sonnet IX
The clouds on Futurity Day bore out in a general way this prognostication. But he overweened himself.
2005, A. J. Liebling, Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer, page 327
To make or render arrogant and overweening. quotations examples
There is, I suppose, the cheap drama of man sticking his nose into an area where it does little good except to expand his already overweened vanity.
1987 October, Field & Stream, volume 92, number 6, page 24
Sometimes we manage to come up with original ways of viewing a world hardened, stratified, overweened by its own power, a world which believes itself as omnipotent as its technological achievements might seem to imply.
2009, Ariel Dorfman, The Empire's Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds, page 6
(proscribed) To overwhelm. quotations examples
The invasion of a vast enemy host upon the unprepared is unstoppable; the huge phalanx of tanks overweens our small army of trucks and rifles; […]
2003, Michael Gelven, What happens to us when we think: transformation and reality, page 44