Where does overling come from?

It is traced to Middle English.

overling

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Scrabble Score

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noun

noun

British usage

"But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died, …"
"Reflex laughs from the underlings present, though only grim smiles from the overlings."

From over + -ling on analogy with underling, or as a revived or dialectal term from Middle English overling (“a superior”). By surface analysis, over + -ling.

overlings (plural)

underling

How to pronounce overling

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