Word.ws English Dictionary

overhelp

overhelp verb: to supply with too much help.

Verb

overhelp (third-person singular simple present overhelps, present participle overhelping, simple past and past participle overhelped)

  1. To supply with too much help.
    • Modify homework and independent projects to the child's instructional or independent level, so that parents are not forced to overhelp the child.2008, Rich Weinfeld, Michelle Davis, Special Needs Advocacy Resource Book
    • Gilbert and Silvera (1996) found that overhelping can be used to spoil another person's identity by causing onlookers to attribute the other's success to the help.2012, Mark R. Leary, June Price Tangney, Handbook of Self and Identity, page 561

Forms of overhelp

third-person singular presentoverhelps
present participleoverhelping
past participleoverhelped
pastoverhelped

Origin of overhelp

From over- + help.

Questions about overhelp

What does overhelp mean?
Overhelp means to supply with too much help.
What part of speech is overhelp?
Overhelp is a verb.
What is the past tense of overhelp?
The past tense of overhelp is overhelped.

Words near overhelp in the dictionary

  1. overheighten
  2. overheightened
  3. overheightening
  4. overheightens
  5. overheld
  6. overhelp
  7. overhelped
  8. overhelpful
  9. overhelping
  10. overhelps
  11. overhemisect

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overhelp (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: “overhelp.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overhelp. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.