I am wondering what relationship, if any, exists between these two words. I am not familiar with "ween" as such, but I have heard "overweening" a great deal.

Welcome, Kerby!

Well, I haven't heard of overweening either. They seem like great words to me. In reading about the word, I see that ween comes from the Old English word wenan, meaning to think. Interestingly, just yesterday I was looking up remember to learn of its roots and found that it was dervived from Old French, by way of Latin, from the word memorari, meaning to "be mindful of," which is somewhat similar. It does seem to me that there are a lot of words pertaining to thinking, comprehending, or "being mindful."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

But the definition of "overweening" does not seem to me to be related to "know":
overweening \oh-vur-WEE-ning\, adjective:
1. Overbearing; arrogant; presumptuous.
2. Excessive; immoderate; exaggerated.
Unless it's like "I know more than you do" (presumption or arrogance).
The "ween" part is too odd to not be related, it seems to me.
Where are those people who can pop up with PIE derivations when we really need them? <G>

Think about an arrogant, know-it-all you may have known at some point. He knows more than you do, and he's going to show you!

I think it's related to "know."

You've got a point there. <G>

I love to listen to people like that, since they usually decide they know more than I do *before* they find out what it is that I know.

I recall my father saying:
The wise old owl sat in an oak.
The more he saw, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
why can't we all be like that wise old bird?

Linda

The Online Etymology Dictionary:
overweening;
ween.

wēnan, the source of ween is "to ween, suppose, think, imagine, opine, believe".

The Online Etymology Dictionary says overweening is from ofer-wenian. ofer-wenian means "to become insolent".

wenian is "to accustom, train, prepare, fit; to accustom oneself, be accustomed". This is the source of wean.

They're both from *wen- "to desire" but it seems that by Old English they were separate verbs.

AHA! I'm glad I lured someone into adding to this. I forgot about the OED (not to be confused with that other, bloated resource book). I think I forbid myself to go there, because for a Word Golfer like me, it's a guaranteed Time Sink of several hours. (But what *happy* hours they are!)

I see that the words are indeed related in the way that we had surmised. Thanks, Dippy Dog, er, I mean Goofy.

quote:

Originally posted by kerby:
I see that the words are indeed related in the way that we had surmised.

Not quite... overweening does not come from ween. The ween of overweening meant "be accustomed", not "think". I know that the Online Etymology Dictionary suggests that overweening comes from ween, but I don't think that is true. wēnan and wenian were separate verbs in Old English.

You have to go back earlier than Old English to find a connection.

>The ween of overweening meant "be accustomed", not "think".

So, I was right to be confused in the first place. <G>
Thanks for further elucidating the matter.

Linda

You know what they say...when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. Isn't it the truth?! I should have looked up overween. I had just assumed that they both came from wenan. Duh!

In checking the online OED, there is an obscure noun form of ween, meaning a "belief" or "opinion." Here is that etymology:

quote:

[OE. wén fem. (rarely masc. or neut.) corresp. to OFris. wên opinion, OS. wân masc., hope, OHG., MHG. wân masc., opinion, hope, etc. (mod.G. wahn fem., delusion), ON. ván fem., hope, Goth. wn-s hope:OTeut. *wni-z, f. Teut. and Indogermanic root *wen- to love.]

There's another ween that's an adjective, meaning "beautiful:"

quote:

[a. ON. vnn:OTeut. type *wnjo-, f. *wni- WEEN n.]

Is ON Old Norse? That oe sign is between the v and nn and the w and njo, but I can't copy and paste it.

The online OED says that "over" is a prefix in overween and that "ween" (verb form) is the stem. They say overween comes from ween, so that must be where Etymology.com got its information. Interestingly, the OED also says, "The suggestion (by Skeat) that this word should rather be derived from WEAN v. is not widely accepted." Does anyone know who Skeat is?

Interesting question, Kerby.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Is ON Old Norse?

Yes. Old Norse is the language from which all the Scandinavian languages are descended. It's a bit confusing, but Old Norse is sometimes called Old Icelandic, which, technically, was a dialect of Old Norse (link).

Walter Skeat's An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, altho I can't anything about overween being from wean.

I don't have access to the online OED, but I do have the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology and they do say that overweening comes from ween. Perhaps I am wrong. I was looking at Old English ofer-wenian, wenian and wēnan - they seem to be quite different verbs.

Just when I've said that this thread is dead for lack of more to say, along comes Anu Garg with a comment that really ties all our observations together:

ween (ween) verb tr., intr.

To think, suppose, believe.

[From Old English wenan (to expect), from the Indo-European root wen-
(to desire or to strive for) that's also the source of wish, win,
venerate, venison, Venus, and banya. It's the same word that shows
up in "overweening".]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

Linda

But what I still don't know, see, is: are ween and overweening derived from the same Old English word? Or is overweening from Old English ofer-wenian "to become insolent" and therefore not from Old English wēnan "to think"? When the OED says that overweening is composed of over + ween, what exactly does that mean?