overhope

English

Etymology

From Middle English overhope, oferhope, equivalent to over- + hope.

Noun

overhope (uncountable)

  1. Excessive hope or anticipation; presumption.
    • 1859, Francis Bacon, James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, The works of Francis Bacon: Volume 7:
      If the good turn out less than you hoped for, good though it be, yet because it is not so good, it seems to you more like a loss than a gain, by reason of the overhope.
  2. (Britain dialectal) Hopefulness; sanguineness.

Verb

overhope (third-person singular simple present overhopes, present participle overhoping, simple past and past participle overhoped)

  1. To hope excessively; presume.
    • 1919, The Country gentleman: Volume 84:
      If we have overhoped ourselves in the hay we may have done the same with the hogs.
    • 1992, David G. Moursund, International Society for Technology in Education, The technology coordinator:
      I'll cast this observation a little too broadly to make the point clearer: many principals "overhoped" that computers would have miraculous effects on all students exposed to them even if only for a few minutes per week, and now finding [...]
  2. (transitive, Britain dialectal) To hope constantly.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.