overaffect

English

Etymology

From over- +‎ affect.

Verb

overaffect (third-person singular simple present overaffects, present participle overaffecting, simple past and past participle overaffected)

1. (transitive) To have too great an effect on.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To care for unduly or excessively.
   • 1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Causes that hitherto have Hindred it. […], [London]: […] Thomas Vnderhill, →OCLC:

     if those that overaffect antiquity will follow the square thereof, their bishops must be elected by the hands of the whole church

   • 1649-1650, John Trapp, A clavis to the Bible‎^[1]:

     We forfeit many favours, by overaffecting them.

   • 1640, John Donne, LXXX sermons preached by that learned and reverend divine, Iohn Donne, Dr in Divinity, late Deane of the cathedrall church of S. Pauls London‎^[2]:

     And take thou heed of over-affecting, overvaluing the gifts of any man so, as that thou take the voice of an Angell, for the voyce of the Archangell, any thing that that man saies, for the word of God.

References

• “overaffect”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.