high-wrought

[ hahy-rawt ]

adjective

1. highly agitated; overwrought.

Word History and Origins

Origin of high-wrought¹

First recorded in 1595–1605

Example Sentences

Awe-struck, the much-admiring crowd Before the virgin-vision bow’d; Gaz’d with an ever-new delight, And caught fresh virtues at the sight; For not of earth’s unequal frame They deem’d the heav’n-compounded dame, If matter, sure the most refin’d, High-wrought, and temper’d into mind, Some darling daughter of the day, And body’d by her native ray.

From Project Gutenberg

Not heeding what he said, the old lady had fallen back in her meditations to a very remote "long ago," and was thinking of a time when every letter from India bore the high-wrought interest of a romance, of which her nephew was the hero,—times of intense anxiety, indeed, but full of hope withal, and glowing with all the coloring with which love and an exalted imagination can invest the incidents of an adventurous life.

From Project Gutenberg

I shall answer, then, that he had none of the profound legislative wisdom, piercing sagacity, or rich, impetuous, high-wrought imagination of Burke; the manly eloquence, strong sense, exact knowledge, vehemence, and natural simplicity of Fox: the ease, brilliancy, and acuteness of Sheridan.

From Project Gutenberg

Simple in his language and feelings, a fond father, an affectionate husband, businessman of the closest habits of industry—one reads his strange imaginations, and passionate, high-wrought, and even sublimated poetry, and is in doubt at which most to wonder—the man as he is, or the poet as we know him in his books.

From Project Gutenberg

It was the delightful haunt of Hawthorne's leisure, the scene of the occurrence which inspired the most thrilling and high-wrought chapter of his romance.

From Project Gutenberg

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