▪ I. overheat, n.
(ˈəʊvəˈhiːt)
[over- 29.]
Too great heat, excessive heat; overheated condition.
| 1599 T. M[oufet] Silkwormes 59 Colde sometimes kills them, sometimes ouer-heate. 1626 [see over-cold n.]. 1885 Pall Mall G. 11 Mar. 9/1 The cause of the fire is attributed to ‘overheat of gas stove’. |
b. fig. Excessive ardour, fervour, vehemence, etc. (cf. heat n. 11).
| c 1640 J. Smyth Lives Berkeleys (1883) I. 379 The over⁓heat and boldnes of whose ill-guided manhood. 1756 F. Brooke Old Maid No. 10. 72 An over-heat of temper. 1870 J. H. Friswell Mod. Men of Lett. iv. 85 This author has an overheat and vigorous fertility in his invention. |
▪ II. overheat, v.
(ˌəʊvəˈhiːt)
[over- 27; cf. Ger. überheizen.]
1. a. trans. To heat too much, heat to excess, make too hot.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. vii. lxiv. (1495) 281 The leprouse pacyent shall beware of meetes..that ouerheetyth the blood. 1580 Sidney Ps. xxii. ix, Whose hart,..like wax oreheated, Doth melt away. 1657 North's Plutarch, Add. Lives (1676) 76 Fearing lest he should endanger his life by overheating himself. 1785 Mrs. Astley Let. in Mrs. Delany's Corr. Ser. ii. III. 408 You will be discreet, and not over⁓heat yourself in dancing. 1866 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 333 Furnaces overheated in casting Landseer's ‘great lion’. |
b. fig. To excite to excessive warmth of feeling, etc.
| a 1667 Cowley Ode Ld. Broghill's Verses v, When it were dangerous for me To be o'er-heat with praise! 1682 N. O. Boileau's Lutrin i. 133 So storm'd the Prelate, with his Dream o're-heated. |
2. intr. To become too hot.
| 1902 C. S. Rolls in A. C. Harmsworth et al. Motors & Motor-driving 172 How to tell when a Motor is Overheating. 1908 Westm. Gaz. 27 Oct. 4/1 The engine overheated twice,..but this was when the car was taken out without any water in the radiator. 1950 Sci. News XV. 81 It may be found that the rocket overheats in spite of this cooling. 1971 Sci. Amer. Aug. 108/3 The compressors developed the required low pressure but overheated after several hours of continuous use. 1974 Country Life 21 Mar. 654/3 The mill oversped, the stones overheated, and the mill caught fire. |
3. (Usu. as pa. pple., as ppl. a., or as gerund.) Of a national economy: to bring about a condition of marked inflation by placing excessive pressure on resources during a period of expansion in demand.
| 1956 Ann. Reg. 1955 227 Heavy industry had..been ‘over-heated’, but there was no strain on producers of consumer goods, and retail prices in this field had hardly risen. 1962 Daily Tel. 16 July 10/2 Most people would accept that an economy must not become ‘overheated’. 1962 Economist 1 Sept. 800/2 Its [sc. Japan's] balance of payments crises and periods of ‘overheating’. 1965 Ibid. 16 Oct. 269/1 The money and securities markets in New York have allowed themselves in the past month a nice frenzy of fear about the economy's ‘overheating’. 1971 Observer 14 Mar. 8/4 It was argued in the 1960s that a faster rate of growth produced so-called ‘overheating’—the situation in which demand exceeds resources, whether of labour or plant. 1973 Times 16 May 27/3 The danger of an over-heated economy was ‘reasonably small’. 1974 Times 23 Mar. 13/2 The second layer of trouble was the progressive overheating of the economy last year. Ibid. 9 Oct. 5/2 Successive governments..had overheated the economy by increasing public spending and boosting demand, consequently pushing up inflation. 1976 F. Zweig New Acquisitive Society ii. ii. 94 No labour legislation can replace..general economic policy based on the discipline of the market system and avoidance of over⁓heating of the economy. |
Hence overˈheated ppl. a.; overˈheating vbl. n. (cf. also sense 3).
| 1612 Woodall Surg. Mate Wks. (1653) 188 An overheating or boyling in the blood by reason of the hot humors. 1660 N. Ingelo Bentiv. & Ur. ii. (1682) 115 To give the over-heated Earth leave to cool it self. 1872 Liddon Elem. Relig. v. 183 Like children, with overheated imaginations. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., Overheating pipe, a pipe through which steam is caused to pass in order to be superheated. 1961 Family Handyman Oct., Too light a feed..causes overheating of the tool and burning of the cutting edge. 1969 Gloss. for Landscape Work (B.S.I.) v. 13 Over⁓heating, an undesirable spontaneous temperature rise, due to the action of bacteria during the decomposition of vegetable matter. 1973 J. Leasor Host of Extras i. 13 Early models..beset by unlucky snags like over-heating, and gears that jumped out on the over-run. 1977 M. Sokolinsky tr. R. Merle's Virility Factor xvi. 314 The rumors had appeared spontaneously among the blacks due to the overheating caused by the tense period. |