# overjoy
## English
### Etymology

From over- +‎ joy.

### Pronunciation

* Rhymes: -ɔɪ

### Verb

overjoy (third-person singular simple present overjoys, present participle overjoying, simple past and past participle overjoyed)
* (transitive) To give great joy, delight or pleasure to.
    The prospect of writing three exams in a row without a break does not overjoy me.
** 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, (please specify the page):This salutation ouerioyes my heart.
** c. 1612–1615?, John Fletcher, Francis Beaumont, revised by Philip Massinger, “Loves Cure or, The Martial Maid”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act V, scene ii, page 143:In overjoying me, you are grown sad;
** 1711, Alexander Pope, Letter to Henry Cromwell dated 25 June, 1711, in Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, London: E. Curll, 1735, Volume 2, p. 10,
    If my Letter pleas’d you, your’s overjoy’d me;
* (transitive, rare) To give too much joy to.
** 1898, Thomas Hardy, “To an Orphan Child”, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses‎, New York and London: Harper, page 163:Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother’s; Hers couldst thou wholly be, My light in thee would outglow all in others; She would relive to me. But niggard Nature’s trick of birth Bars, lest she overjoy, Renewal of the loved on earth Save with alloy.
* (intransitive, obsolete) To take too much pleasure (in something).
** 1598, John Wilbye, The First Set of English Madrigals, London: Thomas Este, Madrigal ,
    Your deeds my hart surchargd with ouerioying:
** 1618, Joseph Hall, Contemplations upon the Principall Passages of the Holy Story‎, volume 4, London: Henry Fetherstone, page 42:it is hard not to ouer-ioy in a sudden prosperitie, and, to vse happinesse is no lesse difficult, then to forbeare it
** 1685, Thomas Manton, “A Description of the True Circumcision” in Several Discourses Tending to Promote Peace and Holiness among Christians, London: Jonathan Robinson, p. 113,
    That he doth not over-joy in worldly Comforts, nor over-grieve for worldly Losses.

#### Derived terms

* overjoyed

### Noun

overjoy
* Very great joy.
    Synonym: ecstasy
** 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:to salute my king / With ruder terms, such as my wit affords / And over-joy of heart doth minister
** a. 1631, John Donne, Letter to Robert Karre in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, London: Richard Marriot, 1651, p. 299,
    I beginne to bee past hope of dying: And I feele that a little ragge of Monte Magor, which I read last time I was in your Chamber, hath wrought prophetically upon mee, which is, that Death came so fast towards mee, that the over-joy of that recovered mee.
** 1835, William Wordsworth, “The Russian Fugitive” in Yarrow Revisited, and Other Poems, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, p. 143,
    Amazement rose to pain, / and over-joy produced a fear / Of something void and vain,
** 1975, Jesse Stuart, “No Warning from the Wind”, in The World of Jesse Stuart: Selected Poems,‎, New York: McGraw-Hill, page 158:The katydids express their overjoy / Down in knee-high maturing August grasses;
* Excessive joy.
** 1963, B. A. Saletore, Ancient Indian Political Thought and Institutions‎, Asia Publishing House, page 318:Restraint of the organs of sense, on which success in study and discipline depends, can be enforced by abandoning lust, anger, greed, vanity (māna), haughtiness (mada) and overjoy (harṣa).
** 1991, Robert F. Morneau, Mantras from a Poet: Jessica Powers‎, Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, page 5:The knowledge that some are deprived tempers overjoy or overdesire.
** 2006, Zhi Gang Sha, chapter 6, in Soul Mind Body Medicine‎, Novato, CA: New World Library, page 158:The emotional extremes of overexcitement, overjoy, depression, and anxiety are all blockages in the Message Center.