Word.ws English Dictionary

overapply

overapply verb: to apply to excess.

Verb

overapply (third-person singular simple present overapplies, present participle overapplying, simple past and past participle overapplied)

  1. (transitive) To apply to excess.
    • German speakers, like English speakers, are prone to overapplying the weak suffix (-t) to irregular verbs, resulting in errors.1999, Steven Pinker, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language

Forms of overapply

third-person singular presentoverapplies
present participleoverapplying
past participleoverapplied
pastoverapplied

Origin of overapply

From over- + apply.

Questions about overapply

What does overapply mean?
Overapply means to apply to excess.
What part of speech is overapply?
Overapply is a verb.
What is the past tense of overapply?
The past tense of overapply is overapplied.

Words near overapply in the dictionary

  1. overapology
  2. overapplication
  3. overapplications
  4. overapplied
  5. overapplies
  6. overapply
  7. overapplying
  8. overappraisal
  9. overappraisals
  10. overappraise
  11. overappraised

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overapply (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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