1612 J. Cotta Short Discouerie Dangers Ignorant Practisers Physicke 6 Their ignorant and rash ouervse.

1862 D. T. Ansted & R. G. Latham Channel Islands iv. xxii. 509 The oyster beds are becoming impoverished, partly by over-use.

1880 Fortn. Rev. Apr. 488 Invective may be a sharp weapon: but over-use blunts its edge.

1905 Athenæum 7 Oct. 469/2 The authors note the growing over-use of short sentences.

1961 R. D. Baker Essent. Pathol. xv. 360 Overuse of the voice can cause traumatic laryngitis and ‘singer's nodes’.

1995 Guardian 22 July (Outlook section) 25/2 People know that road-building, air and oil pollution, burning tyre dumps all result from people's over-use of the car.

1607 S. Rowlands Flatteries Fawne l. 12, in Democritus Your owne to vse, I euer will remaine, So I may vse, and ouer-vse againe.

1677 T. Gale Court of Gentiles: Pt. IV iv. 21 When ever we overuse any lower good we abuse it.

1865 A. Trollope Can you forgive Her? II. vi. 43 When a man has over-used his liver till it will not act for him any longer, it is not well for him to resolve that he will forget the weakness of his organ just as he sits down to dinner.

1873 M. Arnold Lit. & Dogma Pref. p. xiii Without the use of so many books that he can afford not to over-use and mis-use one.

1920 P. C. Buck Unfigured Harmony (ed. 2) 12 Diminished sevenths are extremely useful, though more liable to be over-used than any other chord.

1998 Zest July 21/4 Not that I don't think make-up's fine; it's just that women do seem to overuse it.