Word origin
[1915–20;
over- +
compensation; as psychoanalytic term, trans. of
Überkompensation, coined by Alfred Adler
]This word is first recorded in the period 1915–20. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: conditioning, costar, decoder, markup, supernationalismover- is a prefixal use of over, occurring in various senses in compounds (overboard; overcoat; overhang; overlap; overlord; overrun; overthrow), and especially employed, with the sense of “over the limit,” “to excess,” “toomuch,” “too,” to form verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and nouns (overact; overcapitalize; overcrowd; overfull; overmuch; oversupply; overweight), and many others, mostly self-explanatory: a hyphen, which is commonly absent fromold or well-established formations, is sometimes used in new coinages or in any wordswhose component parts it may be desirable to set off distinctly