Overwrought

//əʊ.vəˈɹɔːt// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    simple past and past participle of overwork archaic, form-of, participle, past
Adjective
  1. 1
    Excessively nervous, excited, tense, angry, anxious, or upset; overemotional; very uneasy.
  2. 2
    Elaborate; baroque; overdone.

    "Her book includes an incisive discussion of misogyny on the New Right. [Laura K.] Field notes how “gynocracy” and “the longhouse” have become overwrought MAGA epithets for an unbearably feminized and pluralist society."

Adjective
  1. 1
    deeply agitated especially from emotion wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
ornateaffectedaggrandizedagitatedagitatedamplified

Example

More examples

"At the funeral, the widow was overwrought with grief."

Etymology

Past participle of overwork; equivalent to over- + wrought.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.