Word.ws English Dictionary

overscented

overscented is the simple past and past participle of overscent.

Meaning of overscent

Verb

overscent (third-person singular simple present overscents, present participle overscenting, simple past and past participle overscented)

  1. (transitive) To give too much scent to (something or someone); to scent excessively.
    • He figured the big bear was coming in downwind and picking up his scent. “So I moved the bait station about 200 yards to a better location. Most bear hunters won’t make so many changes because they’re scared of overscenting the area. But I knew I had to make changes to kill that bear. […] ”1989, Dan Bertalan, Traditional Bowyers of America, East Lansing, MI: Envisage Unlimited, Chapter 10, p. 158
  2. (intransitive, reflexive) To apply too much scent to oneself.
    • It is never good taste to overscent one’s-self, but a person who uses no kind of artificial perfume at all, neither in soap nor in pomade, nor yet in the linen, is not always the most agreeable.1873, “Perfumes”, in Every Saturday, Series 3, Volume 3, No. 20, 17 May, 1873, p. 555
  3. To scent so as to cover or conceal the original odour.
    • having the stinch of his railing tongue, over-sented with the fragrant ointment of this Prince’s memory1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI), page 371

See all 4 meanings of overscent

Adjective

overscented (comparative more overscented, superlative most overscented)

  1. Scented excessively.
    • […] he was very ready to go and see her whenever summoned by one of her overscented notes, the odor of which was quite hateful to Mrs. Bulliman.1868, Shirley Brooks, chapter 25, in Sooner or Later, New York: Harper, page 142
    • She admired Louis Lambert, Le colonel Chabert, Cesar Birotteau, and Eugénie Grandet, but she had a lively distaste for the overscented salon stories such as La femme de trente ans,1946, Stefan Zweig, chapter 7, in William Rose, Dorothy Rose, transl., Balzac, New York: Viking, page 121

Forms of overscented

comparativemore overscented
superlativemost overscented

Questions about overscented

What does overscented mean?
Overscented means scented excessively.
What is overscented the simple past and past participle of?
Overscented is the simple past and past participle of overscent.
What part of speech is overscented?
Overscented is an adjective.

Words near overscented in the dictionary

  1. overscaring
  2. overscarves
  3. overscattered
  4. overscattering
  5. overscent
  6. overscented
  7. overscenting
  8. overscents
  9. oversceptical
  10. overscepticism
  11. overschedule

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overscented (page history and authors); overscent (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: “overscented.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overscented. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.