Word.ws English Dictionary

overbuilding

overbuilding is the present participle and gerund of overbuild.

Meaning of overbuild

Verb

overbuild (third-person singular simple present overbuilds, present participle overbuilding, simple past and past participle overbuilt)

  1. (ambitransitive) To perform excessive construction on a building or in an area.
    • How much more interesting & worth writing about Betjeman's subjects are than most other modern poets, I mean, whether so-and-so achieves some metaphysical inner unity is not really so interesting to us as the overbuilding of rural Middlesex.c. 1962, Philip Larkin on John Betjeman
  2. (transitive) To build over or on top of another structure.
    • The architect wanted to overbuild the restaurant on top of an office.
  3. (transitive) To build with excessive size or elaboration.
  4. (intransitive) To construct more buildings than necessary in an area.

Questions about overbuilding

What is overbuilding the present participle and gerund of?
Overbuilding is the present participle and gerund of overbuild.

Words near overbuilding in the dictionary

  1. overbudgeting
  2. overbudgets
  3. overbuild
  4. overbuilder
  5. overbuilders
  6. overbuilding
  7. overbuilds
  8. overbuilt
  9. overbulk
  10. overbulked
  11. overbulking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overbuilding (page history and authors); overbuild (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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Cite this entry: “overbuilding.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overbuilding. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.