Word.ws English Dictionary

protest too much

protest too much verb: to insist so passionately about something that people suspect the opposite of what one is saying.

Verb

protest too much (third-person singular simple present protests too much, present participle protesting too much, simple past and past participle protested too much)

  1. (idiomatic) To insist so passionately about something that people suspect the opposite of what one is saying.

Forms of protest too much

third-person singular presentprotests too much
present participleprotesting too much
past participleprotested too much
pastprotested too much

Origin of protest too much

Shortened from the lady doth protest too much.

Questions about protest too much

What does protest too much mean?
Protest too much means to insist so passionately about something that people suspect the opposite of what one is saying.
What part of speech is protest too much?
Protest too much is a verb.
What is the past tense of protest too much?
The past tense of protest too much is protested too much.

Words near protest too much in the dictionary

  1. protesomal
  2. protesome
  3. protest
  4. protest song
  5. protest songs
  6. protest too much
  7. protest vote
  8. protest votes
  9. protestable
  10. Protestancy
  11. protestant

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: protest too much (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: En-au-protest too much.ogg.

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