hypercorrects

Verb

hypercorrect (third-person singular simple present hypercorrects, present participle hypercorrecting, simple past and past participle hypercorrected)

1. (transitive) To change (a word or phrase) to a nonstandard form, or to another option among a set of accepted alternative-form options, in the mistaken belief that the form used was wrong.
   • I use reduplicate to mean "redouble," though both words should mean "quadruple," but English is funny that way, so hold off on the hypercorrecting "gotcha!"2007 October 28, William Safire, “And Now This”, in The New York Times Magazine, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022
2. (rare, transitive) To correct excessively.
   • Likewise, both the chapcha that accompanies the modern Hebrew handshake and the explicit demand to shake hands like a "male" stem from the need to overcompensate (or hypercorrect) for the effeminacy, passivity, feebleness, and bodily unfitness so often ascribed to Jews by other Europeans...2012, Benjamin Maria Baader, Sharon Gillerman, Paul Lerner, editors, Jewish Masculinities: German Jews, Gender, and History, Bloomington, I.N.; Indianapolis, I.N.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN...

See all 3 meanings of hypercorrect