overweening
/oʊvɚˈwinɪŋ/adjective, verb
overweening is spelled O-V-E-R-W-E-E-N-I-N-G. The wrong spelling people search most is overweaning: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Overweening is an adjective meaning “Unduly confident; (sometimes also) arrogant”.
How many letters and syllables are in overweening?
| Letters | 11: O-V-E-R-W-E-E-N-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 13 million words; the 106,501st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, overweaning, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell overweening?
Overweening is spelled O-V-E-R-W-E-E-N-I-N-G. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for overweening in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is overweening?
Overweening appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 106,501st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce overweening?
- UK /əʊvəˈwiːnɪŋ/
- US /oʊvɚˈwinɪŋ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Persent101-overweening.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with overweening?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as overweening from its last stressed vowel (/inɪŋ/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of overweening
- more overweening comparative
- most overweening superlative
- over-weening
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does overweening mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Unduly confident; (sometimes also) arrogant.
She wins one modeling contest in Montana and suddenly she’s overweening.
- 2
Exaggerated, excessive.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of overween
noun
- 1
archaicAn excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s abilities; presumption, arrogance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Overweening in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense over-confident:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | confiant, arrogant |
| German | überheblich, eingebildet, anmaßend, arrogant |
| Spanish | prepotente |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does overweening come from?
From Middle English overweninge, equivalent to overween + -ing. Cognate with obsolete Dutch overwanig, overwaand (“presumptuous; cocky; conceited”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).