Word.ws English Dictionary

overdye

overdye verb: to dye (something already coloured) with another colour.

Verb

overdye (third-person singular simple present overdyes, present participle overdyeing, simple past and past participle overdyed)

  1. (transitive) To dye (something already coloured) with another colour.
    • To last more than a few days in the sunshine, the crushed logwood needed to be over-dyed on woad- or indigo-coloured fabric.2002, Victoria Finlay, Colour, Sceptre, published 2003, page 111
    • There was a sweater dress in almost the same shade of blue as one shown at Doo.Ri; overdyed plaid shirts with contrasting plaid cuffs and collars for men like those at Duckie Brown; and lots of chunky knit gray cardigans like the ones popping up all over the place — just not at the same prices.2008 February 7, Eric Wilson, “A Gap Guy, Head to Toe”, in New York Times
  2. To dye too much.
    • Near-synonym: overcolor
    Synonyms:
    overcolor

Synonyms of overdye

Forms of overdye

third-person singular presentoverdyes
present participleoverdyeing
past participleoverdyed
pastoverdyed
alternative formover-dye

Origin of overdye

From over- + dye.

Questions about overdye

What does overdye mean?
Overdye means to dye (something already coloured) with another colour.
What part of speech is overdye?
Overdye is a verb.
What is the past tense of overdye?
The past tense of overdye is overdyed.

Words near overdye in the dictionary

  1. overduplication
  2. overdust
  3. overdusted
  4. overdusting
  5. overdusts
  6. overdye
  7. overdyed
  8. overdyeing
  9. overdyes
  10. overdying
  11. overeager

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overdye (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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