overrefine

1. 1.

   refine too much or with excess of subtlety

   “He is overrefining this matter”

   Synonymsover-refine

   Broaderpolish

Other forms of overrefine

past tense

overrefined·

present participle

overrefining·

third person

overrefines·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about overrefine

What does overrefine mean?

overrefine means "refine too much or with excess of subtlety".

How many syllables are in overrefine?

overrefine has 4 syllables: o-ver-re-fine. The stress falls on "ver".

What is another word for overrefine?

Close synonyms include over-refine. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is overrefine a common word?

overrefine is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.