Word.ws English Dictionary

over-polite

over-polite adjective: excessively polite.

Adjective

over-polite (comparative more over-polite, superlative most over-polite)

  1. Excessively polite.
    • She can communicate both of these intentions simultaneously by using an over-polite request such as "Would you mind if I asked you to keep the windows closed, please?" Such unexpectedly over-polite utterances are often interpreted as ironic.2007, Raymond W. Gibbs, Herbert L. Colston, Irony in Language and Thought

Forms of over-polite

comparativemore over-polite
superlativemost over-polite

Origin of over-polite

From over- + polite.

Questions about over-polite

What does over-polite mean?
Over-polite means excessively polite.
What part of speech is over-polite?
Over-polite is an adjective.

Words near over-polite in the dictionary

  1. over-meticulousness
  2. over-old
  3. over-optimistic
  4. over-Panamax
  5. over-partial
  6. over-polite
  7. over-precise
  8. over-pronate
  9. over-pronated
  10. over-pronates
  11. over-pronating

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: over-polite (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.

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