Is there any way to recover a lost document in microsoft word?

I basically moved a duplicate file into the folder and agreed to let it overwrite the file in the folder, thinking that the one I was overwriting was an older version- needless to say, it was not.

Is it gone forever? or is there hope?

unfortunatly its gone for good sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Microsoft Office Word documents can be lost in certain situations. For example, the document may be lost if an error occurs that forces Word to quit, if you experience a power interruption while you are editing, or if you close the document without saving changes.

This article discusses steps that you can use to try to recover the lost document.

Notes鈥?The whole document may be lost if you have not recently saved the document. If you have saved your document, you may lose only the changes that you made since the last save.
鈥?Some lost documents may not be recoverable. Use the following methods in the order that they appear, as appropriate for your situation.
鈥?Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps.

Search for the original document
1. Click Start, and then click Search.
2. Click All files and folders in Search Companion on the left side of Microsoft Windows Explorer.
3. In the All or part of the file name: box, type the file name that you want to find.
4. In the Look in box, click My Computer, and then click Search.
5. If the results pane does not contain the file, continue with the following steps to search for all Word documents.
6. In the All or part of the file name: box, type *.doc, and then click Search.
If the results pane box does not contain the file, view the Recycle Bin. To view the Recycle Bin, follow these steps: 1. On the desktop, double-click Recycle Bin.
2. On the View menu, click Details.
3. On the View menu, click Arrange Icons by, and then click Date Deleted.
4. Scroll through the files.

If you find the document that you are looking for, right-click the document, and then click Restore.
This returns the document to its original location.

or just click the link for more information...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827099

Can you make your computer go back a day or two and see if it is in the temp cache?