oversum
oversum noun: a whole that is more than the sum of its parts; superaddition.
Noun
oversum (plural oversums)
- A whole that is more than the sum of its parts; superaddition.
- The tradition consists in understanding a politically active unit as an oversum (that is, a super-additive entity): The whole is more than the sum of its parts.2004, Max-Planck-Institut für Ausländisches und Internationales Patent-, Urheber- und Wettbewerbsrecht, Max Planck series on Asian intellectual property law, page 8
- It follows from this counterbalance of majority rule and inalienable absolutes within a given society that the latter is ordered according to the oversum principle: The whole is more than the sum of its parts.2004, Christoph Antons, Michael Blakeney, Christopher Heath, Intellectual Property Harmonisation Within ASEAN and APEC, page 6
Verb
oversum (third-person singular simple present oversums, present participle oversumming, simple past and past participle oversummed)
- To add up incorrectly, arriving at a total that is too large.
- In an account in the ledger, which has been ruled off as square, it is found that the credit side has been oversummed by £ 100.1941, The Accountant's Magazine - Volume 45, page 314
- and in measure your measure you always oversum — and now I have now come to tell you that this is the last time that I shall never call again and you only want1996, Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents - Volume 1, page 287
Examples of oversum in a sentence
- The Saxonian tradition does not know or rejects the cooperative, the oversum, or superaddition.2008, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Abhandlungen: Issue 132, page 343:
- In other cases, the sheets are found to be systematically oversummed; while again "dummy" mon may be inserted, or the calculations of the details of the pay may be overstated.2014, Roy A. Chandler, J. R. Edwards, Recurring Issues in Auditing (RLE Accounting):
Forms of oversum
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | oversums |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | oversums |
| present participle | oversumming |
| past participle | oversummed |
| past | oversummed |
Origin of oversum
From over- + sum.
Questions about oversum
- What does oversum mean?
- Oversum means a whole that is more than the sum of its parts; superaddition.
- How do you use oversum in a sentence?
- The Saxonian tradition does not know or rejects the cooperative, the oversum, or superaddition.
- What part of speech is oversum?
- Oversum can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of oversum?
- The plural of oversum is oversums.
Words near oversum in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: oversum (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: “oversum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oversum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.