Overgrown

How to spell overgrown

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce overgrown

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does overgrown mean?

1. adjectiveCovered with plants or vegetation that have grown too thickly or been left untended.

Overgrown in a sentence

• The back garden was hopelessly overgrown after a summer of neglect.

• Buyers were put off by the overgrown path leading to the front door.

Where does overgrown come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, built from the Old English elements ofer, meaning 'above' or 'beyond', and growan, the verb 'to grow'. The combined form ofergrowan already existed in Old English to describe plants spreading beyond their proper bounds, and grown is simply the irregular past participle of grow, which has carried its 'ow' spelling down through the centuries. Because both parts are everyday Germanic words rather than borrowed scholarly terms, the spelling stayed transparent: it is literally 'over' plus 'grown'. The same over- prefix sits inside dozens of familiar compounds such as overcome, overdue, and overrun, all sharing the sense of excess. The only quiet trap is remembering the single 'r' in 'grow' and the silent 'w' that has been part of grow since its earliest written records.

How the word is built

• over- (excessively, beyond)
• grow (to develop, increase in size)
• -n (past participle suffix)