Word.ws English Dictionary

overreaction

overreaction noun: a reaction that is excessive.

Noun

overreaction (countable and uncountable, plural overreactions)

  1. A reaction that is excessive.
    • She had every right to dump you, but cutting up all your clothes after she did so was an overreaction.
    • This whole fear over swine flu was unfounded; it was clearly an overreaction.

Examples of overreaction in a sentence

  • The threat of terrorism to the British lies in the overreaction to it of British governments.2012 December 14, Simon Jenkins, “We mustn't overreact to North Korea boys' toys”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 2, page 3:
  • In most cases, this overreaction to terrorism poses a far greater threat to our security than the terrorists themselves.2018, Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century:

Forms of overreaction

pluraloverreactions

Origin of overreaction

From over- + reaction.

Questions about overreaction

What does overreaction mean?
Overreaction means a reaction that is excessive.
How do you use overreaction in a sentence?
The threat of terrorism to the British lies in the overreaction to it of British governments.
What part of speech is overreaction?
Overreaction is a noun.
What is the plural of overreaction?
The plural of overreaction is overreactions.

Words near overreaction in the dictionary

  1. overreact
  2. overreacted
  3. overreacter
  4. overreacters
  5. overreacting
  6. overreaction
  7. overreactions
  8. overreactive
  9. overreactivities
  10. overreactivity
  11. overreactor

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overreaction (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: en-us-overreaction.ogg.

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