Word.ws English Dictionary

overlive

UK/əʊvəˈlɪv/US/oʊvəɹˈlɪv/

overlive verb: to survive; to live past.

Verb

overlive (third-person singular simple present overlives, present participle overliving, simple past and past participle overlived)

  1. (transitive) To survive; to live past.
  2. (transitive) To outlive; live longer than.
    • [M]y disease cannot survive me, I may overlive it.1624, John Donne, Meditation VII
    • "Her Majesty's life will never be safe for a moment while she lives; and what would become of us all did she overlive the Queen!"1891, Charlotte M. Yonge, chapter 31, in Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland
  3. (intransitive) To live too long.
    • Why do I overlive?
      Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out
      to deathless pain?1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker...
    • The misguided youngsters are yachting, attending the races, playing the "stage Johnny," automobiling, playing poker for high stakes, overliving at home, on expensive shopping tours, attending box parties to the theatre, visiting high-priced restaurants, etc., etc.1909, “"How Can He Do It?"”, in Notions and Fancy Goods, volume 43, page 30
  4. (intransitive) To live too fast, too luxuriously, or too actively.

Forms of overlive

third-person singular presentoverlives
present participleoverliving
past participleoverlived
pastoverlived

Origin of overlive

From Middle English overliven, from Old English oferlibban (“to survive”), equivalent to over- + live. Cognate with Dutch overleven (“to survive”), German überleben (“to survive, outlive”), Swedish överleva (“to survive, outlive, outlast”).

Words formed from overlive

Questions about overlive

What does overlive mean?
Overlive means to survive; to live past.
What part of speech is overlive?
Overlive is a verb.
How do you pronounce overlive?
Overlive is pronounced /oʊvəɹˈlɪv/ (US).
What is the past tense of overlive?
The past tense of overlive is overlived.

Words near overlive in the dictionary

  1. overlitigated
  2. overlitigates
  3. overlitigating
  4. overlitigation
  5. overlitigious
  6. overlive
  7. overlived
  8. overliveliness
  9. overlively
  10. overliver
  11. overlivers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overlive (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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Cite this entry: “overlive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overlive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.