overgrowth

[ oh-ver-grohth ]

/ ˈoʊ vərˌgroʊθ /

a growth overspreading or covering something.

excessive growth: to prune a young tree so as to prevent overgrowth.

Origin of overgrowth

First recorded in 1595–1605; over- + growth

Overgrowth of a part due to a multiplication of its elements.

Surgery, with Special Reference to Podiatry |Maximilian Stern
The modest violet may exhale its fragrance through an overgrowth of noxious weeds—and humanity bears out the simile.

Bucholz and the Detectives |Allan Pinkerton
The overgrowth may involve all the tissues equally, or the subcutaneous fat may be specially affected.

Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities--Head--Neck. Sixth Edition. |Alexander Miles
Philosophy, impatient as it may be to build, has much work yet remaining, as pioneer for the overgrowth of ages.

A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays |Percy Bysshe Shelley

These latter improvements were well calculated to quicken the stagnant languor habitual to the overgrowth of eastern empire.

Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete |Edward Bulwer-Lytton