Word.ws English Dictionary

oversentencing

oversentencing is the present participle and gerund of oversentence.

Meaning of oversentence

Verb

oversentence (third-person singular simple present oversentences, present participle oversentencing, simple past and past participle oversentenced)

  1. (transitive) To issue a sentence that is harsher than necessary.
    • The United States currently incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau. John C. Jeffries Jr., today’s morning lecturer, will propose ways to combat a prison system that often “oversentences and overpunishes.”2013 July 29, Maggie Livingstone, “Jeffries to address ‘oversentencing’ in U.S. justice system”, in The Chautauquan Daily, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2024

Questions about oversentencing

What is oversentencing the present participle and gerund of?
Oversentencing is the present participle and gerund of oversentence.

Words near oversentencing in the dictionary

  1. oversensitized
  2. oversent
  3. oversentence
  4. oversentenced
  5. oversentences
  6. oversentencing
  7. oversententious
  8. oversentimental
  9. oversentimentalism
  10. oversentimentality
  11. oversentimentalize

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oversentencing (page history and authors); oversentence (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: “oversentencing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oversentencing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.