Word.ws English Dictionary

overridden

Syllables: o·ver·rid·den/ˌəʊ.vəˈɹɪd.ən//ˌoʊ.vɚˈɹɪd.ən/

overridden is the past participle of override.

Meaning of override

Verb

override (third-person singular simple present overrides, present participle overriding, simple past overrode, past participle overridden)

  1. (transitive) To ride across or beyond something.
    • Around 50 people were evacuated from a rush-hour London Overground service on October 12, after an eight-car train overrode the buffers at Enfield Town station.2021 October 20, “Network News: Commuter train crashes into buffers at Enfield Town”, in RAIL, number 942, page 8
  2. (transitive) To ride over the top of something, usually forcibly.
    • Separation of the caboose from the VAN train had caused the train to go into emergency braking and when Extra 3119 West struck the third rack car, the car overrode the locomotive, destroyed the remaining superstructure, and caused the locomotive to overturn the north rail. The near-instantaneous...1981 August 18, National Transportation Safety Board, “Collision and Derailment”, in Railroad Accident Report: Rear-End Collision of Union Pacific Railroad Company Freight Trains Extra 3119 West and...
  3. (transitive) To ride a horse too hard.
  4. (intransitive, transitive) To counteract the normal operation of something; to countermand with orders of higher priority.
    • In automotive design, safety should override lesser factors such as cosmetics and corner-cutting.
  5. (transitive) To give commands of a higher priority to an automated system; to take manual control of an automated system
    • Manual controls allow the user to override the camera's default settings.
  6. (transitive, object-oriented programming) To define a new behaviour of a method by creating the same method of the superclass with the same name and signature.
    • How the cat runs is defined in the method run() of the class Cat, which overrides the same method with the same signature of superclass called Mammal.

See all 10 meanings of override

Origin of overridden

From Middle English overridden, from Old English oferriden, past participle of oferrīdan (“to ride over”), equivalent to over- + ridden.

Words formed from overridden

Phrases with overridden

Words that rhyme with overridden

Questions about overridden

What is overridden the past participle of?
Overridden is the past participle of override.
How do you pronounce overridden?
Overridden is pronounced /ˌəʊ.vəˈɹɪd.ən/ (UK).

Words near overridden in the dictionary

  1. overrewards
  2. overrich
  3. overrichness
  4. overridability
  5. overridable
  6. overridden
  7. overridden one's commission
  8. override
  9. override one's commission
  10. overrideable
  11. overriden

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overridden (page history and authors); override (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Pvanp7-overridden.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-overridden.wav.

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