overrefined

adjective

over·re·fined ˌō-vər-ri-ˈfīnd

: excessively refined

… appears to be attempting to shed his overrefined appearance to demonstrate … he can hurl partisan vitriol with the best of them.—

David Catanese

… its clichéd reputation … as the most overrefined, overcivilized, repressed nation on Earth, a place of raised pinkies and cakes …—

Russell Smith

Our version switches out the potatoes for yams and the overrefined vegetable oil for coconut oil …—

Margaret Floyd and James Barry

overrefinement

ˌō-vər-ri-ˈfīn-mənt

noun

plural overrefinements

… a boy some seventeen years of age, with his hands all skinned and sore from having picked corn in the cornfield, in those days when a glove was an overrefinement … —

Francis G. Blair

Examples of overrefined in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Jenkins’s overrefined sense of black history — a pageant of fabulous nightmares — is the real extravagance in The Underground Railroad. —

Armond White, National Review, 12 May 2021

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'overrefined.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.