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Overwork   Listen
verb
Overwork  v. i.  To work too much, or beyond one's strength.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overwork" Quotes from Famous Books



... York for the coming winter. It would keep them in view, and probably lead to fresh opportunities; indeed, Susy already had in mind the convenient flat that she was sure a migratory cousin (if tactfully handled, and assured that they would not overwork her cook) could certainly be induced to lend them. Meanwhile the need of making plans was still remote; and if there was one art in which young Lansing's twenty-eight years of existence had perfected him it was that of living completely ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... Hermione's invitation on the sea abruptly. He had felt irritated for the moment, because he had for the moment been unusually expansive, and her announcement that Doro was to be there had fallen upon him like a cold douche. And then he had been nervous, highly strung from overwork. Now he was calm, and could look at things as they were. And if he noticed anything leading him to suppose that the Marchesino was likely to try to abuse Hermione's hospitality he meant to have it out with him. He would speak plainly ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... this cold weather, lack of food, and overwork produced their effect. The old and the weak became too feeble to walk; then they began to die, peacefully, smoothly, as a lamp ceases to burn when the oil is gone. At first the deaths occurred irregularly; then they were frequent; soon it was ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... of her assistants, most of the nursing devolved on her as well. One patient who was critically ill she was obliged for six weeks to nurse entirely both by night and day. Nervous debility was the natural consequence of such overwork, and a deafness from which she had suffered at Kaiserswerth so much increased that the doctor ordered her to rest. That was not immediately possible, as there was no one to take her place, and when at last a successor had been found, and she ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... shopmates; for, as Mrs. Simmons elaborated successive suits, each one modelled on the last, the primal accidents of her design developed into principles, and grew even bolder and more hideously pronounced. It was vain for Simmons to hint—as hint he did—that he shouldn't like her to overwork herself, tailoring being bad for the eyes, and there was a new tailor's in the Mile End Road, very cheap, where . . . "Ho yus," she retorted, "you're very consid'rit I dessay sittin' there actin' a livin' lie before your own wife Thomas Simmons as though I couldn't see through you like ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... 'A combination of overwork and influenza, I should think; but no doubt the tragedy had a good deal to do with it. She went down to stay for a couple of months with an uncle in Dorsetshire, and got better. Then the family lost some money, through a solicitor's mismanagement—enough anyway to make a great deal of difference. ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... no other company than that of his Sienese servant or secretary and of the horses, whose news he carefully sent, in letters and sonnets, to the Countess, Alfieri appears for the first time to have got into a habit of excessive overwork, and to have had the first serious attack of the gout; overwork and gout, the two things which were to kill him. A six months' stay in Paris, where society, the business of printing his works, and the great distance of his lodgings from the house ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... to the recital Of the words that gall and irk, Is the old offender "vital," Done to death by overwork; Only a prolonged embargo On its use by Press and pen Can recall this kind of argot Back ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various

... broken down by overwork, who, when he looked at Pompeii, could think only of the wasted possibilities of Vesuvius as a power plant, and I remember two traveling salesmen on a southern railroad train who expressed scorn for the exquisite ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... was the answer, as Halliday, shaking the snow from his furs, dismounted stiffly. "Strain of overwork necessitated a change, my doctor told me. Trust estate I'm winding up comprised doubtful British Columbian mining interests, and last, but not least, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... something not to be missed by young or old. Yes, the North Russian peasant plays as well as works, and so keen is his enjoyment that he puts far more energy into the play. Because of his simple mode of existence it is not necessary to overwork in normal times to obtain all the food, clothing, houses and utensils he cares to use. Ordinarily he ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... contrive to do so much work?' I shall surprise you by the answer I made. The answer is this—I contrive to do so much work by never doing too much at a time. A man to get through work well must not overwork himself; or, if he do too much to-day, the reaction of fatigue will come, and he will be obliged to do too little to-morrow. Now, since I began really and earnestly to study, which was not till I had left college, and was actually ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... my pipe and sat down to think things over. Wherever I went, the figure was behind me and always in the same threatening attitude. I began to talk to it at last in set phrases: "I know perfectly well what you are," I said; "you are an inhabitant of the land of Mental Overwork. I'm going to hold you at arm's length, because if I allowed you to take liberties, you might grow dangerous. We will travel together if you will insist upon it until this book is finished and then I will take you into some quiet, rural, restful place and lose you." I did not lose him ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... down from heaven and was married to that delightful Englishman?'—Briton, I ought to say! I do wish our dear old Lady Elspeth could be here. How she would enjoy it!—'That feast,' they will say, 'when we were all ill for a month after and the doctor died of overwork.' They will date back to it as ancient peoples did to the Flood. It will be a Great White Stone Day to generations to come. Let us hope there will be no new white stones over yonder"—nodding in the direction of the churchyard—"in commemoration of ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... of caution must here be uttered: do not overwork the pause. To do so will make your speech heavy and stilted. And do not think that pause can transmute commonplace thoughts into great and dignified utterance. A grand manner combined with insignificant ideas is like harnessing a Hambletonian with an ass. You remember ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... read anything more savage or imprudent." Our judgment of it must be tempered by the consideration that Luther suffered in his last years from a nervous malady and from other painful diseases, due partly to overwork and lack of exercise, partly to the quantities of alcohol he imbibed, though he never ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... do doctors call it when you think you see things when you don't? Hal-something. I've got it, whatever it is. It's sometimes caused by overwork. But it can't be that with me, because I've not been doing any work. You don't think my brain's going or ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... have been fond of travel, and at times this fondness has been of great use to me. My constitution, though never robust, has thus far proved elastic, and whenever I have at last felt decidedly the worse for overwork or care, the best of all medicines has been an excursion, longer or shorter, in our own country or in some other. Thus it has happened that, besides journeys into nearly every part of the United States, and official residences in Russia, France, Germany, and the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... by some that drunkenness is on the increase in this island. I have no trusty proof of it: but I can believe it possible; for every cause of drunkenness seems on the increase. Overwork of body and mind; circumstances which depress health; temptation to drink, and drink again, at every corner of the streets; and finally, money, and ever more money, in the hands of uneducated people, who have not the desire, and too often ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... true; overwork had turned Belton's brain, and he was subsequently sent to a Criminal Lunatic Asylum for the rest of his life. But there were moments when he was comparatively sane, and in these interims he confessed everything. ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... Hydronuxia, which acts particularly on the imaginative faculties. As for my sisters, they fared no worse than I. You surely have seen them in the Advertising Pages in all their splendid bloom. Saved from overwork by soaps that make heavy washing a pleasure, eternally youthful through the use of electric massage, they smile at you through the reticulations of the tennis racket which the champion played with at Newport, ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... dull, listless, the fire goes out of their eyes, the litheness out of their limbs: they forget to eat, they cough, and soon they die. Of what? Consumption. Once our fathers were wild and lived in the open air: they scarcely ever died, as we do, of consumption. Crowded cities, bad drainage, overwork, want of healthful exercise, stimulating food, dissipation,—these are human cage-life. If a man is threatened with consumption, let him go back to the plains and forests ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... allows the digestive organs no rest. The overwork imposed upon them and the fermentation cause irritation. This irritation manifests in a constant and almost irresistible desire for food, as does the consumption of much alcohol cause a desire for more alcohol, as the use of morphine or cocaine ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... sincere et candide; and Paul laid the flattering unction to his own sincere and candid soul. Then she spoke prettily of his career. He was to be the flambeau eveilleur, the awakening torch in the darkness before the daybreak. But he musn't overwork. His health was precious. There was a blot and erasure in the sentence. He took the letter to the light, lover-wise, and looked at it through a magnifying glass—and his pulses thrilled when it told him that she had originally written, "Votre ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... concerning sexual processes in their personal as distinguished from their social aspects. The distinction between these two aspects of sex-hygiene is essentially on the same basis as that between personal and public hygiene. For example, indigestion and overwork are matters of personal hygiene, while tuberculosis and typhoid are problems of public hygiene because the individual case leads through infection to disease of others. Similarly, such individual disorders as masturbation and ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... and, secondly, whether a plant's own pollen is less effective than that of another individual. Now, if Scott is moderate in his wishes, I would pay him for a year or two to work and publish on these or other such subjects which might arise. But I dare not have him here, for it would quite overwork me. There would not be plants sufficient for his work, and it would probably be an injury to himself, as it would put him out of the way of getting a good situation. Now, I believe you have gardeners at Kew who work and learn there without pay. What do you think of having ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... functions. At the same time, by the King's desire, he appeared constantly at the frequent banquets, masquerades, tourneys and festivities, for which Brussels at that epoch was remarkable. It was no wonder that his cheek was pale, and that he seemed dying of overwork. He discharged his duties cheerfully, however, for in the service of Philip he knew no rest. "After God," said Badovaro, "he knows no object save the felicity of his master." He was already, as a matter of course, very rich, having been endowed by Philip with property to the amount of twenty-six ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... all nonsense. Of course we are speaking of our own kind of men and women, and the disproportion of the numbers in so small a division of the population amounts to nothing. We have no statistics to tell us whether there be any such disproportion in classes where men do not die early from overwork." ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... she swept the dripping suds first from one arm and then from the other. He put his arms round her massive waist and kissed her wet steamy lips. The tears welled into her eyes—not so much from strength of feeling as from the weakness of chronic overwork. She shoved him away from her, but not before he caught a ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... of the traffic there is no question of debating how he came to stumble before we try to get him on his legs again. The Cab Horse is a very real illustration of poor broken-down humanity; he usually falls down because of overwork and underfeeding. If you put him on his feet without altering his conditions, it would only be to give him another dose of agony; but first of all you'll have to pick him up again. It may have been through overwork or underfeeding, or it may have been all his own fault that he has broken ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... we've 'ad overwork at the guvnor's, and I'm a-goin' to put a sovereign by safe come next Whitsuntide, when I'm a- goin' to enjoy myself. I don't get much enjoyment, Mr. Butterfield, but I mean ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... of overwork fer some time, but Miss Giltinan decided me. She's very keen on me openin' ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... talking about? Twelve hundred francs! You don't understand me, then, my boy; it's worth two thousand. I take it at two thousand. And from this day forward you must work for no one but myself—for me, Naudet. Good-bye, good-bye, my dear fellow; don't overwork yourself—your fortune is made. I have taken it in hand." Wherewith he goes off, taking the picture with him in his carriage. He trots it round among his amateurs, among whom he has spread the rumour that he has just discovered an extraordinary painter. One of the amateurs ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... Overwork, or perhaps mainly the indescribable strain on the nerves and vitality of men, caused by this experience, for which in fact men are not built, puts one of our staff after another in bed. None has been seriously sick: the malady takes some form of "grip." On the whole we've ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... a passably comfortable existence, leading a righteous and peaceful life in all piety and probity; and their material position was far better than that of their successors. They did not need to overwork; they did no more than they chose to do, and yet earned what they needed. They had leisure for healthful work in garden or field, work which, in itself, was recreation for them, and they could take part besides in the recreations and games of their neighbours, and all these ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... feeding in meadows that have been flooded, where it is peculiarly fatal—the grazing (according to Mr. Leigh, and our experience confirms his statement) upon the clays lying over the blue lias rock—the neighborhood of woods and of half-stagnant rivers—the continuation of unusually sultry weather—overwork, and all the causes of acute dysentery, may produce that of a chronic nature; an acute dysentery—neglected, or badly, or even most skillfully treated—may degenerate into an incurable chronic affection. Half starve ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... and, somewhere in the midst, the majesty of England in the frail body of a little old lady, who had had many children and one supreme misfortune. Moreover, he could incidentally see Charlie. Moreover, he had been suffering from a series of his customary colds, and from overwork, and Heve had told him that he 'would do with a change.' Moreover, he had a project for buying paper in London: he had received, from London, overtures which seemed promising. He had never been able to buy paper quite as cheaply as Darius had bought paper, for the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... meant anything else but to get on in the world—to get as far as he could. He kept at his "short," and by the time he was nineteen it helped him to a place in a newspaper office. He took dictation from a nervous and harried editor, who, when he was driven to frenzy by overwork and incompetencies, found that the long-legged, clean youth with the grin never added fuel to the flame of his wrath. He was a common young man, who was not marked by special brilliancy of intelligence, but he had a clear head and a good temper, and a queer aptitude for ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... contain the whole history of their conjugal life, which had but three events; the births of two children, born three years apart, and the death of Bridau, who died in 1808, killed by overwork at the very moment when the Emperor was about to appoint him director-general, count, and councillor of state. At this period of his reign, Napoleon was particularly absorbed in the affairs of the interior; he overwhelmed Bridau with work, and ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... of the commonplaces of modern geography. He furnished such articles as, Deluge, Corvee, Societe for the Encyclopedia and wrote several large and extremely learned books, among them Recherches sur l'origine du Despotisme oriental and Antiquite devoilee. He died from overwork ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing

... times of overstress and strain, the defective organ or organs will manifest their weakness. The intricate nervous system and the brain, the unseen instincts and emotions likewise do not work perfectly; but as a rule the ones that underwork or overwork cannot be seen by a physical examination. It generally requires great subtlety to find them, and careful treatment and environment to make the machine work fairly well in spite of these imperfections. This could be provided; in most cases the machine could be placed in an environment ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... at Oxford—more than brilliantly—and he had paid for overwork by a long break-down. After getting his fellowship he had been ordered abroad for rest and travel. There was nobody to help him, nobody to think for him. His father and mother were dead; and of near relations he had only a brother, established in business at Liverpool, with whom he had ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... doctor that ever was, and his invariable prescription to all his patients is, "lie low, go slow, and keep cool." He says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died under his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crack in Pansay's head and a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... my spectacles. They are probably shut up in that volume of Herbert on my table. Very awkward to find myself without them ten miles away. Thank you, John. Don't neglect to water the lettuce, Nan, and don't overwork yourself, my little ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... Such noble work, and suffered to behold Its fruit, if he knew more of us and ours?" With that the other leaned, as if attent: "I am not perfect, brother, in his thought." The mystic bird replied. "Brother, he saith, 'But it is nought: the work is overhard.' Whose fault is that? God sets not overwork. He saith the world is sorrowful, and he Is therefore sorrowful. He cannot set The crooked straight;—but who demands of him, O brother, that he should? What! thinks he, then, His work is God's advantage, and his will More bent to aid the world than ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... is a great nuisance. The Doctor tries to persuade me that it is the effect of overwork, but I have always been so from a child, and ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... suffering of children. Yet for many years now we have had in this country a large and increasing number who were going through the daily pain of grappling with every phase of the distressing problems which come from the poverty, friendlessness, and overwork of the young. Out of their heartbreaking scrutinies there have come certain determinations which are being adopted rapidly wherever the social sense is aroused. We may roughly sum up these conclusions or determinations ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell

... him: how he is lodged, and if there is anybody by him who will see that he has regular meals. He will neglect his meals if he is allowed to neglect them, so, in the interests of the musical reformation, somebody should be charged to look after him, and he should not be allowed to overwork himself; but it will be difficult to prevent this. The most we can hope for is that he shall get his meals regularly, and that the food be of good quality and properly cooked. The food here is not very good, nor very ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... theologian. Wechel, Christian, Parisian printer. Wechel, Andrew, son of above. Weiser, Caspar, Swedish poet. Wentworth, Peter, pamphleteer. Wharton, Henry, died of overwork. Whitchurch, Edward, printer. Willenberg, Samuel Friedrich, advocate of polygamy. Williams, John, poet. ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... Lanier was hard at work for the publishers. Although he never lost his love for music — he could not — he began to see that his must be a literary career. In a letter of March 20, 1876, he says to Judge Bleckley that he has had a year of frightful overwork. "I have been working at such a rate as, if I could keep it up, would soon make me the proverb of fecundity that Lope de Vega now is." He refers to the India papers written for "Lippincott's". "The collection of the multitudinous particulars involved in them cost me such a world of labor among ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... especially lenient in these cases, as he held that a farm-boy, used to going to bed early, was apt to maintain the habit in later life. It came out that the youth had taken the place of a comrade the night before, as extra duty, and this overwork had fatigued him so that his succumbing was at least explicable. This clue being in a letter he wrote home, his sister journeyed to the capital with it and showed ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... Chicago and civilization? No one can doubt that to abolish prostitution means to abolish the slum and the dirty alley, to stop overwork, underpay, the sweating and the torturing monotony of business, to breathe a new life into education, ventilate society with frankness, and fill life with play and art, with games, with passions which hold and ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... seems to have kept a nobleman on milk a year. Also there must be total abstinence from wine and all fermented liquors. Early bed hours and early rising are for the gouty. Then there come wise words as to worry and overwork. But, above all, the gouty must ride on horseback and exercise afoot. As to the wilder passions of men, he makes this strangely interesting remark, "All such the old man should avoid, for," he says, "by their indulgence he thus denies himself the privilege of enjoying that jubilee which ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... wasn't enough, he came down with brain fever," went on Ross. "I suppose it was brought on by worry and overwork. Anyway, when he got on his feet again, everything had gone to smash and he didn't have a cent left. Worse than that, he was in debt for ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... unreasonable—she did not overwork her, although there was always plenty of sewing to be done. She rather enjoyed being busy, on the whole, while she experienced a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that she could be independent; she even felt something of ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... days when, like Heinrich Heine, he seemed to be lying in a "mattress grave," his dauntless humor never forsook him, as this little incident will show: Some years previous, Gillette suffered a breakdown from overwork. When the actor-playwright went to his home at Hartford to recuperate his ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... Don't overwork the expression "Fire broke out." All fires "break out," but usually we are more interested in the result of the fire than in its "breaking out." Try to use some expression that will ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde

... to her a great devotion ill-repaid, a friendship, of which the strong tyrannous man took advantage. Why should he behave as though all that happened ill with regard to his book was somehow Mrs. Burgoyne's fault? Claim all her time and strength—overstrain and overwork her—and then make her tacitly responsible if anything went amiss! It was like the petulant selfishness of his character. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the hotel, from British Columbia. They are in easy circumstances—and the daughter is dying of overwork! The husband has a large fruit farm, but they can get no service; the fruit rots on the ground; and the two women are ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... remember them. That his constitution had been seriously weakened, and there was an excitability of brain and nerves which made care requisite; but depression of spirits was the chief thing to guard against, and a London life, provided he did not overwork himself, was better for ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... water off, and use the settlings. When yeast has soured it may be restored by adding to it a little carbonate of soda or ammonia. When dough has soured, the acidity can be corrected by the use of a little carbonate of soda or ammonia. If the sponge of "raised bread" be allowed to overwork itself it will sour from excessive fermentation, and if the temperature be permitted to fall, and the dough to cool, it will be heavy. Thorough kneading renders yeast-bread white and fine, but is unnecessary in bread made with ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson

... third year she made herself thoroughly ill through overwork, so ill that she had to give up Newnham altogether and go abroad with her stepmother. She made herself ill, as so many girls do in those university colleges, through the badness of her home and school training. She thought study must needs be a hard straining of the mind. ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... application of an unnatural and anti-social system competition, through excessive delay in practical apprenticeship, through the internat, through artificial stimulation and mechanical cramming, and through overwork. There is no consideration of the future, of the adult epoch and the duties of the complete man. The real world in which the young man is about to enter, the state of society to which he must adapt or resign himself, the human struggle in which he must ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... belonged to the same man, Lindsay Johnson. I was a small boy. I can't tell you how he was to his folks. Seems like though he was pretty good to us. Seemed like he was a pretty good master. He didn't overwork his niggers. He didn't beat and 'buse them. He gave them plenty to eat and drink. You see the better a Negro looked and the finer he was the more money he would bring if they wanted to sell them. I have heard my mother ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... "La Clemenza di Tito," was finished in time and performed, but was received somewhat indifferently. Mozart returned to Vienna with spirits depressed and body exhausted by overwork. However, he braced himself anew, and on September 30th, the new fairy opera, the "Magic Flute," was produced, and its success increased ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... good news awaited them. The crisis was past. Bailey was definitely out of danger. He was still asleep, and sleeping easily. It had just been an ordinary breakdown, due to worrying and overwork, said the doctor, the bigger of the doctors, the one who had been summoned from ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... "You overwork your boys, Johnson. I wasn't through with that one. I'll have to ask you to send another up to show ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... sight-seeing, are you? How banal of you. Morning in the Duomo, afternoon on the Lido, and the Accademia to fill the spare hours; I know the dear old round. Never could be worried with it myself; too much else to do. But one manages to enjoy life even without it, so don't overwork. And come and see my toys again by daylight, and try to enthuse a little more over them next time. You're too young to be blase. You'd better read the Gem, to encourage yourself in simple pleasures. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... imagination the horrors which so long characterized these plantations. The bloodthirsty spirit of the Spanish slaveholders had free scope here for centuries, during which time the invaders sacrificed the entire aboriginal race; and since then millions of Africans have been slowly murdered by overwork, insufficient food, and the lash, simply to fill the pockets of their rapacious masters with gold. Few native Cubans are sugar-planters. These estates are almost universally owned and carried on by Spaniards from the European peninsula, or ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... for ten days. There were no tidings of reinforcements, and I hardly knew whether I wished for them,—or rather, I desired them as a choice of evils; for our men were giving out from overwork, and the recruiting excursions, for which we had mainly come, were hardly possible. At the utmost, I had asked for the addition of four companies and a light battery. Judge of my surprise when two infantry regiments successively arrived! I must resort to a scrap from ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... by an interesting case," said the man in green and yellow. "A prominent politician—ahem!—suffering from overwork." He glanced at the breakfast and seated himself. "I have been ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... parts of his dominions which his father had never once visited, and in both was received with the most exultant and apparently sincere acclamations. And, though one great calamity fell on the ministry in the loss of Lord Castlereagh—who, in a fit of derangement, brought on by the excitement of overwork, unhappily laid violent hands on himself—his death, sad as it was, could not be said to weaken or to affect the general policy of the cabinet. Indeed, as he was replaced at the Foreign Office by his old colleague and rival, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... Ship Hotel. The unfortunate gentleman had been missing for some days, and considerable anxiety for his safety had been felt in cheiromantic circles. It is supposed that he committed suicide under the influence of a temporary mental derangement, caused by overwork, and a verdict to that effect was returned this afternoon by the coroner's jury. Mr. Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of the Human Hand, that will shortly be published, when it will no doubt attract much attention. The deceased ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... walking through marshy places, denotes illness resulting from overwork and worry. You will suffer much displeasure from the unwise ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... "You must not overwork yourself, my dear," said Miss Heath. "That would be a very false beginning. I think— I am sure— that you have an earnest and ardent nature, but you must avoid an extreme which will only end ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... hypo-phosphates is excellent too, and will bring back the fire of energy to the eye, and the roses to the cheeks. A dessertspoonful taken before meals will stimulate and strengthen, and get the tired body into a better state to resist the wear and tear of ill health or overwork. ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... she can come here,' he said, 'for poor Prothero is making himself quite ill with anxiety and overwork. I don't think he has slept four hours a night since he found her. And then, Gladys! she is not strong, she will ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... and partially recovered; but on the day upon which a lecture had been arranged from him before the Liberal Club he was taken down a second time with a relapse, which has been very near proving fatal. The cause was overwork and complete nervous prostration which brought on low fever. His physician has allowed one friend only to see him daily for five minutes, and removed him to St. Luke's Hospital for the sake of the absolute quiet, comfort, and intelligent attendance he could ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... reluctancy, a hesitation inexplicable—unless overwork explained it—had come over him when Siward had proposed their dining together on the very eve of his ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... as well as the payment of wages insufficient for maintenance of the manual worker in full industrial and domestic efficiency, stand economically on the same footing with the "sweated" industries, the overwork of women, and employment ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... open, and the chaplain gradually recovered, as he did in Burgess's parlour, at Port Arthur, seven years ago. "I am liable to these attacks. A touch of heart disease, I think. I shall have to rest for a day or so." "Ah, take a spell," said Frere; "you overwork yourself." ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... with a few chords. This regime gives me three hours' regular study, which seems to me quite sufficient. The voice is not like the fingers of a pianist, for they can be used without limit. If we would keep the voice at its best, we must take care not to overwork it. ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... some stimulant. The beer is not Bass's ale, but it contains from two to five per cent. of alcohol. Unhealthy-looking little men are these German boys of from twelve to fifteen during the war. The overwork, and the lowering of the diet, has given them pasty faces and dark rings round their eyes. All games and amusements have been abandoned, and the only relaxation is corps marching through the streets at night, singing their ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... do not understand girls,' returned his mother composedly. 'But you may safely leave Mollie to me. Am I likely to overwork one of my own children? Should I be worthy of ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... of overwork, at least. I lost everything in a moment. That was penalty, perhaps, for having risked everything. I have only recently been getting back a little: no, getting back nothing,—but some new life, out of a new world, I think. A different world from what I ever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... the bones are hurt by not being supplied with pure blood; the heart gets tired out with overwork, and the lungs become diseased ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis

... her homesickness by overwork, so that Emerson says, "her reading in Groton was at a rate like Gibbon's," and she paid the penalty of her excesses by a serious illness which threatened to be fatal, and from which perhaps she never fully recovered. It ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... 'Old-Fashioned Girl' and her friends forward several years, and ended the story with two happy marriages. In 1870 she went abroad a second time, and from her return the next year until her death in Boston from overwork on March 6th, 1888, the day of her father's funeral, she published twenty volumes, including two novels: one anonymous, 'A Modern Mephistopheles,' in the 'No Name' series; the other, 'Work,' largely a record ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... from Stamford for a long time. His illness, which first seemed slight, and merely due to temporary overwork, had taken a more serious turn after his journey to London, chiefly in consequence of a severe cold caught on the outside of the coach. It was for this reason that he was advised to seek rest and strength at the house of his brother, living, with some ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... to achieve subsistence in the realm of intellectual and sedentary occupations especially, are increasing. But co-operative housekeeping of some kind is the only hope for mothers to be saved from overwork and worry, and to have leisure for the proper training and entertaining ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... Ballantyne was also no mean artist, and exhibited some of his water-colours at the Royal Scottish Academy. He lived in later years at Harrow, and died on the 8th of February 1894, at Rome, where he had gone to attempt to shake off the results of overwork. He wrote a volume of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... of Bulwer's play for the Guild of Literature has likewise been deferred on account of the races. I hope, dear papa, that you, Mr. Nicholls, and all at home continue well. Tell Martha to take her scrubbing and cleaning in moderation and not overwork herself. With kind regards to her and Tabby,—I am, your ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... me that boats were sometimes washed ashore on these islands. That reminded me of it. I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to ask Mr. Wyckoff to drag the boat to the water for us. He's been very obliging and I don't want to overwork him without paying him for his trouble," Tom ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson

... overwork; nervous exhaustion.—Hygiene, making its way into the school, discovered scholar's spinal curvature and scholar's myopia; experimental psychology discovered the exhaustion due to overwork, and ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... explorations. It would have been impossible to penetrate to the interior of arctic lands or to traverse the frozen seas but for the services of the faithful dogs trained to draw sledges. Many of these animals have suffered from overwork and have perished from starvation; others have been sacrificed for food in dire extremities to preserve the lives of their masters. Surely arctic service has proved as destructive to the poor ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... that Anna should die in childbirth, but it does matter that all these Annas, Mavras, Pelagueyas, from dawn to sunset should be grinding away, ill from overwork, all their lives worried about their starving sickly children; all their lives they are afraid of death and disease, and have to be looking after themselves; they fade in youth, grow old very early, and die in filth and dirt; their children ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... been on a furlough. I was running down through exhaustion and overwork, and I was compelled to go home for a few weeks' rest. But now, as they are about to close the hospital, I shall be permanently relieved. I am glad that this cruel strife is over. It seemed as if I had lived through ages during these last few years. In ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... readings. My weakness and deadness are all on the left side; and if I don't look at anything I try to touch with my left hand, I don't know where it is. I am in (secret) consultation with Frank Beard, who says that I have given him indisputable evidences of overwork which he could wish to treat immediately; and so I have telegraphed for him. I have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and I sleep soundly, and have picked up amazingly in appetite. My foot is greatly better too, and I wear my own boot." Next day was appointed for ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... side, 'Fanatic,' 'Visionary,' 'Throwing out his by no means boundless wealth like water for the sake of chimeras, ideally noble enough, but still vain chimeras!' And the news at the week's end, 'Young Garrison stricken: a shock. Overwork, over-excitement, and the result of an accident suffered not long since. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... the tomb of Luffe. He fell in this courtyard, struck down not by a bullet, but by overwork and the strain of the siege. I know. I have the story from an old soldier whom I met in Cashmere this summer and who served here under Luffe. Luffe fell in this court, and when ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... health is to the concert pianist. The student should never fail to think of this. Many young Americans who go abroad to study break down upon the very vehicle upon which they must depend in their ride to success through the indiscretions of overwork or wrong living. The concert pianist really lives a life of privation. I always make it a point to restrict myself to certain hygienic rules on the day before a concert. I have a certain diet and a certain amount of exercise and sleep, without ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... are men who die of overwork; but many more die of selfishness, indulgence, and idleness. Where men break down by overwork, it is most commonly from want of duly ordering their lives, and neglect of the ordinary conditions of physical ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... his anxiety and to be sure that he did not overwork, I hired Uncle Frank McClintock to come down for two or three days a week to help kill the weeds. "The crop is not important to me," I said to him privately, "but it is important that you should keep a close watch on Father while I am away. He is getting feeble ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... to appease him, said gently: "You know I am nervous from overwork. The rehearsals have been doubled lately. If you don't come when I expect you, I imagine horrors!" The manager was about to put his fork into a grilled quail, when she whisked it away and put it on Giovanni's plate. ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... officer had a riding animal at his disposal, yet never for once did he mount him; but instead lent the horse to some deserving soldier who was on the point of succumbing to overwork. When the Indian village was discovered, he cheered his men from a limping walk into a sort of run, and dashing through a swollen mountain stream, which was nearly up to their armpits, and full of floating ice, he was, with his company, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... each other what they really feel Not his fault that half the world was dark Nothing in that book to startle him or make him think Of course! The words seemed very much or very little One from whom the half of life must be excluded Overwork personified Potent law of hobbies controlled the upper classes Professional intolerance Putting into words things that can't be put in words Secret that her eyes were not his eyes Settled down to complete ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger

... moved to question Jimmie about his past life, so as to understand how such fanaticism had come to be. So Jimmie told about starvation and neglect, about overwork and unemployment, about strikes and jails and manifold oppressions. The other listened, nodding his head. "Yes, of course, that was enough to drive any man to extremes." And then, thinking further, "I wonder", said he, "which of us two got the worse ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... temporary relief. Mr. IAN HAY hits the mark about eight times in every ten in A Knight on Wheels (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), which is not at all a bad proportion for three hundred and nineteen pages. He has some delightful ideas, which, happily, he does not overwork: a case in point is the brief but rapid career of Uncle Joseph, who employs the most criminal methods in order to attain the most charitable ends. The story is a simple one—youth, laughter and love; and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various

... in his London frock-coat, appeared rounder and heavier than ever but for the contradictory vigor and lightness of his step, the shrewd cheerfulness of the eyes. It had been a hard week in Parliament, however, and his features and complexion showed signs of overwork and ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... misapplication, misappropriation. abuse, profanation, prostitution, desecration; waste &c 638. V. misuse, misemploy, misapply, misappropriate. desecrate, abuse, profane, prostitute: waste &c 638; overtask, overtax, overwork: squander &c 818. cut blocks with a razor, employ a steam engine to crack a nut; catch at a straw. Adj. misused &c v.. Phr. ludere cum ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... places. Some workmen, indeed, when they can earn in four days what will maintain them through the week, will be idle the other three. This, however, is by no means the case with the greater part. Workmen, on the contrary, when they are liberally paid by the piece, are very apt to overwork themselves, and to ruin their health and constitution in a few years. A carpenter in London, and in some other places, is not supposed to last in his utmost vigour above eight years. Something of the same kind happens in many other trades, in which the workmen are paid by the piece; ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... Shocking!" But I thought somehow he had not really followed me very attentively in my celebration of our national violation of the laws of life and its consequences. "I am glad," he went on, "that your business men and professional men are beginning to realize the folly and wickedness of overwork. Shall I find some of your other weary ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... 1883, Dor died, prematurely aged and broken down by grief, corroding disappointment and quite frenzied overwork ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... book-reviews, editorials,—in short, all kinds of writing. He was editor of various journals at different times, and did all he could to inspire and foster a literary taste in his generation. His style shows the effect of haste and overwork. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... The evacuations became less frequent, and in a week the patient was able to be up. Resuming then, Kurz concludes that nitrite of amyl is indicated in cardiac affections when the capillary circulation is obstructed and the cardiac muscle is threatened with paralysis from overwork; further, in cases of impeded circulation occasioned by cholera or severe diarrhea, particularly in the so-called hydrocephaloid (false hydrocephalus) of children. It is worthy of trial in tetanic and eclamptic seizures, and in tonic angiospasms such as occur during the chill of malarial fevers, ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... at the time of the Tractarian movement, which he arrayed himself against, and at length turned his back upon and tore himself away from by foreign travel; on his return he was appointed examiner in the Education Office; falling ill from overwork he went abroad again, and died at Florence; he was all alive to the tendencies of the time, and his lyrics show his sense of these, and how he fronted them; in the speculative scepticism of the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... can, my son; so you can. Thank you, Leo, for your kind wish. You can help me very greatly, by taking no notice whatever of any little eccentricities you may observe in my behaviour, and by remembering that they are entirely due to overwork. Now, good night, once more; and remember that we must be stirring early in the morning, as we have a long ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... labour tends to devolve upon the male. That almost entirely modern, morbid condition, affecting brain and nervous system, and shortening the lives of thousands in modern civilised societies, which is vulgarly known as "overwork" or "nervous breakdown," is but one evidence of the even excessive share of mental toil devolving upon the modern male of the cultured classes, who, in addition to maintaining himself, has frequently dependent upon him a larger or smaller number of entirely ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... fondness for sharing with her many readers that cheery humour which radiated from her personality and her books, led her to produce stories of a diminishing value, and at last she succumbed to overwork, dying in Boston on the 6th of March 1888, two days after the death of her father in the same city. Miss Alcott's early education had partly been given by the naturalist Thoreau, but had chiefly been in the hands of her father; and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... medicines calculated to stimulate the kidneys to perform more work. By being thus forced, these organs become seriously diseased. It would appear most unreasonable to whip and spur a horse already jaded from overwork. Common sense would dictate rest, which always does good; but, as the bladder is weak, the doctor whips up the kidneys with drugs, thus endeavoring to force them to secrete more urine, and thereby the poor, crippled bladder, which is incapable ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... side rather than run risk of pusillanimous shirking. Moreover, some work practically requires an over effort for its accomplishment; and no man of mettle will begrudge his very life-blood when necessary. Overwork is "the last infirmity of noble minds." Yet when not really necessary, it must be ranked as a sin, and not too generously condoned. The intense competition of modern industry, the complexity of our economic machinery, the colossal accumulation ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... profession in itself—to make a business of an art is to degrade it. Literature should be the spontaneous output of the mind that has known and felt. To work the mine of spirit as a business and sift its product for hire, is to overwork the vein and palm off slag for sterling metal. Shakespeare was a theater-manager, Milton a secretary, Bobby Burns a farmer, Lamb a bookkeeper, Wordsworth a government employee, Emerson a lecturer, Hawthorne a custom-house inspector, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... producing an impression, Warner was emboldened to go further. Nothing but making Charteris as nervous as himself would have satisfied him, and yet it was not fear, but overwork and want of sleep, that combined with anxiety to keep him tramping restlessly about. "I suppose you have full confidence ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... tells me that he found the headache, etc., come on when there was a breeze, far more than at any other time. His whole party would awake at the same moment, and begin to complain of the symptoms, immediately on the commencement of a breeze. The symptoms of overwork are not wholly unlike those of the puna, and many young travellers who have felt the first, have ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... "Overwork," explained Lord James. "He's been hard at it, day and night, in that stuffy office. He could stand any amount of work out in the open. But this being cooped up indoors and grinding all the time at ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... am only speaking now to the good nurses—the enthusiastic ones,—poor nurses, lazy nurses have no temptation to overwork themselves. They may die of indigestion, but they ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... that she had to do for the children was done decently and in order. She had almost entire charge of them, their mother being engrossed with her husband, whose health and spirits had already begun to suffer from overwork ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand



Words linked to "Overwork" :   overdrive, labor, process, labour, toil



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