Word.ws English Dictionary

overexploit

overexploit verb: to exploit excessively.

Verb

overexploit (third-person singular simple present overexploits, present participle overexploiting, simple past and past participle overexploited)

  1. To exploit excessively.
    • Near-synonyms: overuse, overutilize
    • The president lamented that his nation's fisheries are woefully overexploited, not least because of foreign fishing fleets with no regard for sustainability.
    Synonyms:
    overuse, overutilize

Synonyms of overexploit

Antonyms

Forms of overexploit

third-person singular presentoverexploits
present participleoverexploiting
past participleoverexploited
pastoverexploited
alternative formover-exploit

Origin of overexploit

From over- + exploit.

Questions about overexploit

What does overexploit mean?
Overexploit means to exploit excessively.
What part of speech is overexploit?
Overexploit is a verb.
What is the past tense of overexploit?
The past tense of overexploit is overexploited.

Words near overexploit in the dictionary

  1. overexplanation
  2. overexplanations
  3. overexplanatory
  4. overexplicit
  5. overexplicitness
  6. overexploit
  7. overexploitation
  8. overexploitations
  9. overexploitative
  10. overexploited
  11. overexploiting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overexploit (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.

Last updated:

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