oversearch

English

Etymology

From over- +‎ search.

Verb

oversearch (third-person singular simple present oversearches, present participle oversearching, simple past and past participle oversearched)

1. (archaic, transitive) To search all over.
   • 1861, Robert Greene, George Peele, Alexander Dyce, The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Robert Greene & George Peele, page 89:

     To oversearch the fearful ocean

2. To search excessively.
   • 2003, Dorian Pyle, Business Modeling and Data Mining, page 363:

     Oversearching: If you look long enough and hard enough for any particular pattern in a data set, the more you look, the more likely you are to find it—whether it's meaningful or not.

References

• “oversearch”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• overarches