Overdrive

How to spell overdrive

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce overdrive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does overdrive mean?

1. nounA state of intense, accelerated, or maximum activity.
2. nounA gear in a vehicle that lets the engine run at lower revolutions than the wheels, improving fuel economy at speed.

Overdrive in a sentence

• With the deadline looming, the whole team went into overdrive.

• On the motorway he engaged overdrive to lower the engine speed.

• Her imagination shifted into overdrive as she planned the surprise party.

• The old saloon had a switch for overdrive on the gearstick.

Where does overdrive come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound built entirely from native English material: the prefix over-, from Old English ofer meaning 'above' or 'beyond', joined to drive, from the Old English verb drifan, which meant 'to push, urge or propel forward'. The literal idea is therefore something driven beyond its normal point. The mechanical sense emerged in the early twentieth century with the motor car, naming a gear that lets the engine turn more slowly than the road wheels, so the vehicle is in effect driven past its standard ratio. From there the figurative sense, meaning a burst of intense and accelerated activity, developed naturally, since being in overdrive suggests running flat out. Because every part of the word is ordinary English, the only spelling care needed is remembering it is a single closed compound with no hyphen.

How the word is built

• over- (above, beyond)
• drive (from Old English drifan: to push or propel)