forgrow
forgrow verb: to grow to excess or out of shape; grow unduly.
Verb
forgrow (third-person singular simple present forgrows, present participle forgrowing, simple past forgrew, past participle forgrown)
- To grow to excess or out of shape; grow unduly.
- A terror to the new made folke, which neuer erst had knowne
So foule a Dragon in their life, so monstrously foregrowne,
So great a ground thy poyson paunch did vnderneath thée hide.1567, Arthur Golding, transl., The XV Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, entytuled Metamorphosis, Book 1
- A terror to the new made folke, which neuer erst had knowne
- To become grown over; overgrow; become covered with growth (usually one that is excessive or unsightly).
- And after the floode was passed & Noy and his housholde come out of the arke, the worlde beyng deuided among his thre sonnes, Sem, Cham, and Iaphethe, and that the people began eftsones to multiplye and increase, the worlde was so forgrowen in wickednes, that there was none found, that truely...1561, John Gough, “To the Christian Reader”, in A Godly Boke Wherein is Contayned Certayne Fruitefull, Godlye, and Necessarye Rules, London: William Seres
- Plutarch saith that mens minds do rust and forgrow through idlenes […]1595, Jacques Hurault, translated by Arthur Golding, Politicke, Moral and Martial Discourses, London: Adam Islip, Book 2, Chapter 9, p. 298
Forms of forgrow
| third-person singular present | forgrows |
|---|---|
| present participle | forgrowing |
| past | forgrew |
| past participle | forgrown |
Origin of forgrow
From Middle English forgrowen, from Old English forgrōwan (“to grow up, grow into, increase, overgrow”), equivalent to for- + grow.
Questions about forgrow
- What does forgrow mean?
- Forgrow means to grow to excess or out of shape; grow unduly.
- What part of speech is forgrow?
- Forgrow is a verb.
- What is the past tense of forgrow?
- The past tense of forgrow is forgrew.
Words near forgrow in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: forgrow (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “forgrow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/forgrow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
