# overcode
## English
### Etymology

From over- +‎ code.
* This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA or enPR then please add some!

### Noun

overcode (plural overcodes)
* (research methods) A code used to represent multiple (possibly unrelated) data items.
** 1968, Pierce T. Piggott, Lindsay N. Johnston, Foras Forbartha, Technical documentation for the building industry, page 213:Not only is it possible to construct an overcode collecting together groups of bill items but groups of overcodes can themselves be held collectively by a single higher overcode.
** 1971, The General Household Survey: An Inter-departmental Survey:If an awarding institution cannot be identified as Scottish and the qualification is ONC/OND, HNC/HND, Clerical or Commercial, City and Guilds, Apprenticeship or a degree awarded by the C.N. A. A. boxes 1 and 2 are examined and if a Scottish school examination has been entered in either of the two boxes it is assumed that the ONC/OND, HNC/HND, Clerical or Commercial award etc. etc. is Scottish also, and the overcode x is entered.
** 2004, Michael Roe, Market Research in Action, →ISBN, page 119:In the open-ended tabulation below, the responses in capitals are overcodes of individual answers which have been grouped by topic; these overcode answers will total to more than the overall level of likes/dislikes because respondents may give multiple answers; similarly, answers within each overcode may total less than the overcode itself since only the main responses have been reproduced.
* (semiotics) An established code (signifier) that also acts as a new code, either representing additional (related) meanings, or dividing into various nuances of the original meaning.
** 2006, Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, Speaking of God: Reading and Preaching the Word of God, →ISBN, page 126:Instead of overlaying secondary images by alluding to an existing literary or oral tradition, structural overcodes overlay the secondary images by using technical vocabulary from a different frame of reference.
** 2012, Thomas Nail, Returning to Revolution: Deleuze, Guattari and Zapatismo, →ISBN, page 94:Opposed to codes that qualify, and overcodes that bring codes into a single resonance, axioms function by directly conjugating unqualified and decoded flows themselves.
** 2014, Paul Ardoin, S. E. Gontarski, Laci Mattison, Understanding Deleuze, Understanding Modernism, →ISBN:Codes and overcodes refer to qualitative differences and similarities between entities; the circulation and distribution of social goods, as Eugene W.Holland points out, is still dependent onthe symbolic system of conduct, meaning, and belief.
* Inventory that can no longer be sold (such as items that are past their sell-by date).
** 1983, Bureau of National Affairs, Trade Regulation Series, page 604:Other Pepperidge Farm distributors in the San Francisco Bay Area have no overcode returns to speak of and product which does go out of code can be shipped to Pepperidge Farm thrift stores for full credit or sold on the thrift market for a profit, as Mesirow and Morris claim to have done ( See p. 11. above ).
** 2001, L M M Tijskens, M L A T M Hertog, B M Nicolai, Food Process Modelling, →ISBN, page 93:Suppose, we are just interested in articles that can cause overcode.

### Verb

overcode (third-person singular simple present overcodes, present participle overcoding, simple past and past participle overcoded)
* (semiotics) To use as an overcode for.
** 1984, Semiotica - Volumes 50-51, page 367:Social interaction would be the place to study how people learn these cultural codes or reasoning structures, which is related to the human ability to overcode meaning in ways that become conventional (Eco 1976).
** 1998, Vicki Mahaffey, States of Desire: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and the Irish Experiment, →ISBN:It is equally self-defeating to reduce people to objects that may be possessed, or to interpret (i.e., overcode, classify, categorize) people or books.
** 2015, Bridget Roussell Cowlishaw, Masculinity in Breaking Bad: Critical Perspectives, →ISBN, page 177:After Skyler asks Walt if he brought his cellphone and he responds, “Which one,” she tells him that she wants him out of the house. In so doing, she tries to subdivide the domestic home and overcode their relationship with rigid divisions.
** 2017, Jean Hillier, Stretching Beyond the Horizon, →ISBN:Humans will never completely overcode non-human multiplicities.
* (semiotics) To act as an overcode for.
** 2007, M. Fenske, Tattoos in American Visual Culture, →ISBN, page 105:In one example, she describes an advertisement depictin a nude female torso in profile. Wegenstein suggests that in this particular advertisement, the breasts overcode the body in a way that the face previously had reign.
** 2014, Anna Hickey-Moody, Vicki Crowley, Disability Matters: Pedagogy, Media and Affect, →ISBN, page 4:Disability suties in education, as an academic field, or the disability rights movement, might be considered molar discourses that overcode the affective everyday experience of disability education.
** 2017, Jean Hillier, Stretching Beyond the Horizon, →ISBN:Deleuze and Guattari (1987: 9) also recognise that although powerful sign systems may dominate or overcode a multiplicity, such overcoding will inevitably be temporary as 'multiplicities are defined by the outside: by the abstract line, the line of flight or deterritorialisation according to which they change in nature'.
* To use a particular code or set of codes too much.
** 1951, Research Methods in Social Relations: Selected techniques, page 530:One of the greatest sources of unreliability is the constant error introduced by the observer because of distortion of his perceptions created by his own needs or values. An observer who sharply disapproves of certain leadership practices, for example, will have difficulty in preventing a bias. He will tend to overcode those categories which best describe his feelings.
** 1995, United States. Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments: final report:Always overcode. It is better to put both codes down if you have any question about which category is most appropriate.
** 2001, Medical Billing Secrets: Building Your Successful Home-Based Business, →ISBN:But the Office of the Inspector General study disagreed, saying that doctors overcode for these procedures, and the 29% of errors result in a $20 billion overpayment by this federal program.
** 2016, Michael Wasserman, The Business of Geriatrics, →ISBN, page 162:Similarly, EHRs may encourage overcoding, although that is not solely in the domain of the responsibility of an EHR. The desire to make more money in a productivity-driven system can test the ethics of any clinician.
* To code too many things or include too many codes in a coding system.
** 1972, Alice Schlegel, Male dominance and female autonomy:Coding should be done with great exactness: it is better to "overcode" than to "undercode."
** 1978, Kay Hartshorn, Perceived Effects of Graduate School on Couples' Relationships:We had an increased percentage of disagreement at the beginning of her ratings since she was overcoding and making too many ratings, due to a misunderstanding about the coding of responses regarding time.
** 2012, Lyn Richards, Janice M. Morse, README FIRST for a User's Guide to Qualitative Methods, →ISBN, page 167:Don't overcode. Take care to avoid the dangers of “coding fetishism” (Richards, 2009, pp. 109–110), a compulsive activity of researchers who feel they can't think about data unless it is coded.