Word.ws English Dictionary

overclock

overclock verb: to run a processor (CPU), or any electronic logic device, at a speed higher than is recommended by the manufacturer.

Verb

overclock (third-person singular simple present overclocks, present participle overclocking, simple past and past participle overclocked)

  1. (transitive) To run a processor (CPU), or any electronic logic device, at a speed higher than is recommended by the manufacturer.
    • “You need to know something else,” Cora said. “In order for us to survive this, SAM-E is going to...” What was the best word? “Overclock my system. For a short time, I will be a human wrecking ball. One that will hopefully get us through this facility.”2017 November, N. K. Jemisin, Mac Walters, chapter 12, in Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation, 1st edition (Science Fiction), Titan Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 215
    Antonyms:
    underclock

Noun

overclock (plural overclocks)

  1. (informal) The act of overclocking.
    • […] your overclock was too aggressive. The best way to ensure that your overclock is stable is to stress the hell out of your PC.2006, Maximum PC, page 48

Antonyms of overclock

Forms of overclock

Verb
third-person singular presentoverclocks
present participleoverclocking
past participleoverclocked
pastoverclocked
alternative formover-clock
Noun
pluraloverclocks

Past tense of overclock: overclocked

Origin of overclock

From over- + clock.

Words formed from overclock

Questions about overclock

What does overclock mean?
Overclock means to run a processor (CPU), or any electronic logic device, at a speed higher than is recommended by the manufacturer.
What part of speech is overclock?
Overclock can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of overclock?
The past tense of overclock is overclocked.

Words near overclock in the dictionary

  1. overclimbing
  2. overclimbs
  3. overclipped
  4. overcloak
  5. overcloaks
  6. overclock
  7. overclockable
  8. overclocked
  9. overclocker
  10. overclockers
  11. overclocking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overclock (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-overclock.wav.

Cite this entry: “overclock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overclock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.