Word.ws English Dictionary

overwent

overwent is the simple past of overgo.

Meaning of overgo

Verb

overgo (third-person singular simple present overgoes, present participle overgoing, simple past overwent, past participle overgone)

  1. (archaic) To cross, go over (a barrier etc.); to surmount.
    Synonyms:
    overcome, superate
  2. (obsolete) To pass (a figurative barrier); to transgress.
    • How many an one in its vanities hath gloried and taken pride, / Till froward and arrogant thus he grew and did all bounds o'ergo!1882, John Payne, trans., The Thousand Nights and One Night, vol 3
    Synonyms:
    outstep
  3. (UK, dialectal, intransitive) To pass by, pass away; often, to go unnoticed.
    • He did not rave, he did not stare aghast, / For all those visions were o'ergone, and past […]1818, John Keats, “(please specify the page)”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    go by
  4. To spread across (something); to overrun.
  5. To go over, move over the top of, travel across the surface of; to traverse, travel through.
    • forward rode, and kept her readie way / Along the strond, which as she ouer-went, / She saw bestrowed all with rich aray / Of pearles and pretious stones of great assay […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  6. To go beyond; to exceed, surpass.
    • O, what cause have I, / Thine being but a moiety of my grief, / To overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    Synonyms:
    excel

See all 10 meanings of overgo

Questions about overwent

What is overwent the simple past of?
Overwent is the simple past of overgo.

Words near overwent in the dictionary

  1. overweights
  2. overwell
  3. overwelled
  4. overwelling
  5. overwells
  6. overwent
  7. overwept
  8. overwet
  9. overwetness
  10. overwets
  11. overwetted

Source and license

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