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overwrought
in a sentence

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  • I'd always found the Colonel's I-hate-the-rich routine a little overwrought until I saw him with his mom.†   (source)
  • His works, culminating in the overwrought and infamous, if not always successful, Lady Chatterley's Lover, opened the way for more sexual directness.†   (source)
  • Laughing at my own overwrought imagination, I moistened the paper in the basin water and worked the stamp gently free.†   (source)
  • She pulls a lace-trimmed handkerchief out of her pocket—evidently she had one all along, but was too overwrought to use it before.†   (source)
  • Langdon found Bellamy's sense of drama to be somewhat overwrought.†   (source)
  • Since the position is outside of Oria Province, his mother became overwrought and upset.†   (source)
  • Inside their cedar tree they spoke of everything in the intense and overwrought manner of teenagers and he found that she had many moods.†   (source)
  • However, the defense reckoned without the defendant's religious counselor, the tireless Reverend Mr. Dameron, who appeared at the trial as the chief witness for the prosecution, and who, in the overwrought, rococo style of a tent-show revivalist, told the court he had often warned his former Sunday School pupil of God's impending wrath: "I says, there isn't anything in this world that is worth more than your soul, and you have acknowledged to me a number of times in our conversations…†   (source)
  • I was already overwrought about my wife, I was still grieving for my mother, and then to hear such news ….†   (source)
  • My parents were so overwrought that they gave up having any more children and devoted their lives to doing good work among the poor and hungry.†   (source)
  • The closet door was swinging open, pushing the chair in front of it, and his son was crying 'Coooooooooo … And then he realized it wasn't Tad's voice; it was his own tired, overwrought mind making Tad's voice from the thin scraping sound of the chair legs on the painted plank floor.†   (source)
  • He's upset and overwrought and it's not light yet.†   (source)
  • To my surprise I found myself quite popular and very likely I'd have been cured of my overwrought sensibilities except for two things.†   (source)
  • Didn't Ivan the Terrible contain scenes so comically overwrought, amid the undeniable power of the montage, that you laughed and caught your breath more or less simultaneously?†   (source)
  • You are overwrought, Sarah.†   (source)
  • It was almost Christmas and thousands of overwrought travelers jostled each other, hurrying toward flights they hoped would deliver them to their families in time.†   (source)
  • I don't have time to figure out why I'm here or what he's playing at with the fake, overwrought cheeriness, because he doesn't even take a breath, and I wonder if the real Josh Bennett has been abducted by aliens, or maybe the elves carted him off after they got done with my hair.†   (source)
  • 'I can get killed flying them, too,' Dobbs answered pugnaciously in his rough, quavering, overwrought voice.†   (source)
  • Both parents, overwrought with too little money and too many children, fiercely swung the belt-or anything they could grab.†   (source)
  • He clearly loved his daughter in particular and was overwrought at the thought of being kept away from her.†   (source)
  • He's overwrought.†   (source)
  • Felicia remembers how when she was in grammar school the paraphernalia of faith had proved more intriguing than its overwrought lessons.†   (source)
  • Lady Lysa would give his lordship her breast whenever he grew overwrought.†   (source)
  • The world transformed into a gauzy overcast fog empire, and my eyes could no longer focus on the overwrought faces that attacked me from all sides.†   (source)
  • Inside were papers identifying this tragic suicide, this overwrought woman so burdened with grief she took her own life while seeking absolution in the eyes of God.†   (source)
  • Nor can I let you chivvy me into hasty action concerning Gospodin Wright, not when we are tired and overwrought.†   (source)
  • He knew you couldn't just call a taxi in Jeddah or Riyadh — or so said the guidebooks, all of which were overwrought when it came to elucidating the dangers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to foreign travelers.†   (source)
  • I don't happen to see any comparison whatsoever between the Lord and a rundown, overwrought little college girl that's been reading too many religious books and all like that!†   (source)
  • I now you're going to stay up to meet the plane, and I'm too overwrought to sleep.†   (source)
  • There was in his voice the slightly overwrought reverence sometimes used about supreme works of art, yet when I agreed, murmuring a thin "I'll say she is," Nathan could not even have been faintly aware of my forlorn and jealous passion.†   (source)
  • He nodded to De Santis, the harassed Lab Chief, who inquired in an overwrought voice: "One to one?"†   (source)
  • Pollard, surely overwrought from the reducing, lost control.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Wharton wears a confection of a dress—beaded and feathered and overwrought.†   (source)
  • You're overwrought and sticking your nose in a place it shouldn't be.†   (source)
  • The snare had left him weak and overwrought.†   (source)
  • He decided he had been nervous and overwrought that first time.†   (source)
  • Buddy Haas's impending arrival had him overwrought.†   (source)
  • Nelson described her as high-strung, overwrought.†   (source)
  • We had a merry enough time trimming the hat with silk flowers and bows, although several times I broke down in tears because I was overwrought.†   (source)
  • Like the rest of her ilk, Mrs. Moodie is prone to overwrought effusions, and to the concoction of convenient fairy tales; and for the purposes of truth, one might as well rely on the "eye-witness reports" of a goose.†   (source)
  • So what can this "great work" and its spirituality, sexual politics, code of machismo, and overwrought violence teach us?†   (source)
  • Perhaps her eye had become jaded, but Eve's initial scan of the room left her thinking,Overdone, overwrought, and overexpensive.†   (source)
  • Did your dedicated men tell you that' 'You were described as being overwrought — "raving" was the word that was used and making astonishing accusations relative to your wife, yes.'†   (source)
  • Hysterical, overwrought.†   (source)
  • Nouns and verbs, nouns and verbs, and occasionally, to satisfy my own simple lust, I would throw in a delicious, overwrought adjective or two.†   (source)
  • Without question, he had explained to the overwrought guest that she had an option that would both serve her needs and her nerves and hit her errant husband in his financial solar plexus.†   (source)
  • But they accepted my melancholy as some distorted mirror image of my overwrought flights of euphoria.†   (source)
  • Scarlett found that it relieved her overwrought nerves.†   (source)
  • His mother noticed how overwrought he was.†   (source)
  • ] Stella: You seem a little bit nervous or overwrought or something.†   (source)
  • I was overwrought but primed with hopes too.†   (source)
  • At the mention of Ashley's name, Scarlett's overwrought nerves gave way and she burst into tears.†   (source)
  • Overwrought nerves brought sharpness to her voice and her hands clenched at her sides.†   (source)
  • Scarlett, overwrought, could have screamed: "Oh, damn the Lady Harpists!"†   (source)
  • This despair of his not only unmasked the conceited lecturer and dismissed with its irony the matter at hand, the expectant attitude of the public, the somewhat presumptuous title under which the lecture was announced—no, the Steppenwolf's look pierced our whole epoch, its whole overwrought activity, the whole surge and strife, the whole vanity, the whole superficial play of a shallow, opinionated intellectuality.†   (source)
  • Stella could, and did, act as though it was no use answering the accusations of an overwrought woman.†   (source)
  • Grand, too, looked tired and overwrought; he kept pacing up and down the room, opening and closing a portfolio crammed with sheets of manuscript that lay on the table.†   (source)
  • I'm overwrought.†   (source)
  • It happened in that fashion that men call illusion, or the imaginings of people overwrought, or an intimation of the divine.†   (source)
  • His nerves overwrought by sleeplessness, the doctor fancied he could hear, on the edge of the silence, that faint eerie sibilance which had haunted his ears ever since the beginning of the epidemic.†   (source)
  • She was only overwrought, as who would not be?†   (source)
  • You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious.†   (source)
  • She is excited and a little overwrought].†   (source)
  • You are so distressed, so overwrought, that you look at many things mistakenly.†   (source)
  • Mr Dorrit's overwrought heart bounded as he leaped up.†   (source)
  • "Thou'rt overwrought with passion; it disorders thy mind.†   (source)
  • When we were locked in each other's arms, my overwrought feelings could no longer be restrained.†   (source)
  • "You are ill and overwrought," he said; "believe me, you're exaggerating dreadfully.†   (source)
  • Her lover must have guessed her overwrought state, and invented some excuse for her non-appearance, for no inquiries were made or calls given.†   (source)
  • He said that the Lords of the Council, fearing that some overwrought report of the King's damaged health might have leaked out and got abroad, they deemed it wise and best that his Majesty should begin to dine in public after a day or two—his wholesome complexion and vigorous step, assisted by a carefully guarded repose of manner and ease and grace of demeanour, would more surely quiet the general pulse—in case any evil rumours HAD gone about—than any other scheme that could be…†   (source)
  • And at that moment, Mrs. Alden, in court with her husband and Emily, and overwrought, not only by the long strain of the trial but this particular evidence, uttering a whimpering yet clear cry and then falling forward in a faint.†   (source)
  • He seemed to have been born with overwrought nerves, and in his passionate desire to excel, he was often led to the brink of some rash step; and yet, having resolved upon such a step, when the moment arrived, he invariably proved too sensible to take it.†   (source)
  • He's overwrought, naturally.†   (source)
  • Though it was Paul who had seemed overwrought, Babbitt who had been the protecting big brother, Paul became clear-eyed and merry, while Babbitt sank into irritability.†   (source)
  • It was small wonder if the maid were taken with the picture we presented, of a poor, sick, overwrought lad and his most tender comrade.†   (source)
  • There was a connection now, or at least it would not have been difficult to establish one—a justifiable emotion could easily be assigned to his body's overwrought activity.†   (source)
  • It was ridiculous! she was dreaming! her nerves were overwrought, and she saw signs and mysteries in the most trivial coincidences.†   (source)
  • Leonard looked white and overwrought.†   (source)
  • Jenny Hill, a pale, overwrought, pretty Salvation lass of 18, comes in through the yard gate, leading Peter Shirley, a half hardened, half worn-out elderly man, weak with hunger.†   (source)
  • I had come up on deck for a breath of fresh air and to try to get some repose for my overwrought nerves.†   (source)
  • So strange, that Marguerite, wearied, overwrought as she was, thought that the beneficial unconsciousness of the approach of death was playing her half-sleeping senses a weird and elusive trick.†   (source)
  • True, when you listened to the director talk you might sometimes think he had a temperature—there was something not quite right about the way he spoke, it sounded so brash and jovial and easygoing, but there was also something strange about it, something overwrought, especially when you considered those purplish cheeks and watery eyes, which looked as if he were still weeping for his wife.†   (source)
  • My poor darling's brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it, and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream.†   (source)
  • And Clyde, in his own overwrought condition, hearing her cry and seeing her fall, jumping up—the restraining hand of Jephson instantly upon him, while bailiffs and others assisted her and Titus who was beside her from the courtroom.†   (source)
  • Overwrought nature had at last peremptorily asserted herself, and she lay there in a dead swoon: her eyes circled by deep purple lines, that told of long, sleepless nights, her hair matted and damp round her forehead, her lips parted in a sharp curve that spoke of physical pain.†   (source)
  • Her still overwrought nerves, her excitement and agitation, lent beautiful Marguerite Blakeney much additional charm: escorted by a veritable bevy of men of all ages and of most nationalities, she called forth many exclamations of admiration from everyone as she passed.†   (source)
  • "But all this, if you'll excuse my saying so, is a matter of nerves, in my opinion …. your overwrought nerves, that's what it is.†   (source)
  • She has been overwrought lately.†   (source)
  • But to Philip's mind, filled already with a vague anxiety that was likely to find a definite ground for itself in any trivial incident, this sudden eagerness in Stephen, and the change in Maggie's face, which was plainly reflecting a beam from his, seemed so strong a contrast with the previous overwrought signs of indifference, as to be charged with painful meaning.†   (source)
  • The thought, too, came into my overwrought brain that our parts now were completely changed, that she was now the heroine, while I was just a crushed and humiliated creature as she had been before me that night--four days before….†   (source)
  • Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system.†   (source)
  • Presently he said, "I shall feel better when I get to bed; I have been overwrought today; yes, and overworked for many days."†   (source)
  • I felt myself being drawn into that strange domain where the overwrought imagination of Edgar Allan Poe was at home.†   (source)
  • The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town in summer—all worked painfully upon the young man's already overwrought nerves.†   (source)
  • He saw the old princess too, flushed and overwrought, with her gray curls in disorder, forcing herself to gulp down her tears, biting her lips; he saw Dolly too and the doctor, smoking fat cigarettes, and Lizaveta Petrovna with a firm, resolute, reassuring face, and the old prince walking up and down the hall with a frowning face.†   (source)
  • If Jamie were to refuse his oath at this point, I thought he could easily be torn to shreds by the overwrought clansmen around him.†   (source)
  • I had been warned, of course, by Jamie's story, but the physical impression was so overwhelming that when the Duke bowed low over my hand and said, "But how charming to find a countrywoman in this remote spot, Mistress," in a voice like an overwrought mouse, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from disgracing myself in public.†   (source)
  • I had a mind to visit the high shrines, For Oedipus is overwrought, alarmed With terrors manifold.†   (source)
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