overstore

overstore verb: to overstock; to save more than is needed.

Verb

overstore (third-person singular simple present overstores, present participle overstoring, simple past and past participle overstored)

To overstock; to save more than is needed.
- This fish is long in growing; but breeds exceedingly in a water that pleases him; yea, in many ponds so fast, as to overstore them, and starve the other fish.1653, Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler
- even the Ocean it self would have been long since over-stored with Fiſha. 1677 (date written), Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […]...
(obsolete) To attempt to store more than the capacity into which something is put.
- On every hand flourish trees, in the prime of a full score of years, Nature's aviaries, which are preparing hereafter to overstore the fruiteries from their burdened boughs, and now diversify the prospect with green and shade.1847 December, “Horticulture, Natural and Intellectual”, in The Yale Literary Magazine, volume 13, number 2, page 50
- When the gravity of the gyle is about 45 lbs. per barrel, and the temperature of setting 58° or 60° Fahr. (14°.4 to 15°.5 C.) , the atmosphere being at the ordinary temperature and barometric pressure, provided the yeast be of good quality, about 2 to 2 1/2 lbs per barrel will be sufficient, and it...1877, Encyclopædia of Chemistry, page 316
To open more stores than the retail market needs.
- This is an area of vast geography and great retail growth. We can't overstore it.1972, Booton Herndon, Satisfaction Guaranteed
- One can observe expansion-deterring investment in retailing, for example, where a firm may "overstore" a geographic area to limit the expansion of rivals.1981, Steven C. Salop, Strategy, Predation, and Antitrust Analysis, page 55
To imprint (something) upon the memory such that it includes additional emotional content and/or influences other thoughts and memories.
- This inquisition, with its ardent commitment to interpretation and further interpretation, is the complementary process by which presented images overstored with expressive intention can have their meanings developed, brought forth in the full array of their latent possibility.1986, Richard H. Brodhead, The School of Hawthorne, page 167
- There is experimental evidence showing that cortisol restrains the intensity and duration of the emergency reaction to stress, and catecholamines have been shown to enhance emotional memory in the amygdala (see subsection on "Noradrenaline"). Thus, individuals lacking cortisol would overstore...2006, Marcus Lira Brandão, Frederico Guilherme Graeff, Neurobiology of Mental Disorders, page 36
To overfill or overschool the mind (with certain thoughts).
- The wag, knowing the natural frailties of the parents, then asked— "Who combed your hair this morning, my pretty little boy?" and the answer was, very much to the astonishment of the parents, no doubt— "The Holy Ghost." While it is quite right to store the infant mind so far, it is just possible —...1878, Archibald Paul, Random Writings, page 113
- Miss Goode became temporarily lost in the mazes of her memory, which was, indeed, somewhat overstored with sayings which had been repeated to her.1894, All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal - Volume 75, page 267
To overwrite memory or storage.
- An attempt to overstore this new pitch command resulted in a real-time pitch maneuver being commanded 23 times at 1-minute intervals, due to an undetected bit error in the command message.1967, Boeing Company, Lunar Orbiter I: Extended-mission Operations - Issue 848, page 3
- Other FPL/I debugging features include: 1. each time or each n times that a particular identifier is referenced in any way or is referenced in order to overstore the element value, the execution of the program is temporarily suspended, the value of the identifier is displayed, and the CAPS user...1968, University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign campus). Department of Computer Science, Internal Report - Issue 257, page 46

Noun

overstore (plural overstores)

An instance of overstoring, a surplus.
- So may the bread, this day sent down from heaven, Suffice for all the seven; And to each week, till toil and care are o'er, Each Sabbath still may yield its goodly overstore.1881, The Christian miscellany, and family visiter, page 109
- Thus Nature grants Enough for man's support; yea, more, she gives An overstore of all his simplest wants.1881, Wilhelm Jensen, Fair Isle: A Tale in Verse, page 18
The opening of too many stores or stores that are too large.
- Since then, however, except for the short-lived recovery mainly in distributors' demand in 1976 owing to the socalled "overstore effect" ( a large-scale floor space expansions in department stores and supermarkets), the demand has generally remained sluggish, in spite of the demand increasing...1978, Sumitomo Bank Review: Economic Conditions in Japan, page 5
The overwriting of memory or data, especially when done in error.
- If the overstore involves non-reducible data, i.e. data which cannot be effectively stored by interpolation at larger intervals from the original data, then the run will abort.1970, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hydrodynamics Laboratory, Technical Report - Issue 133, page 395
- […] a loop data destroyed by overstore1975, Edward A. Torrero, Microprocessors, page 49

Adjective

overstore (not comparable)

Located above a store.
- […] ; 72,364 ( 29.5 % ) are two-family homes; the remainder, 93,644, are multifamily and apartment-overstore dwellings.1939 ·, James Boyle, Official Brooklyn Guide Book, page 10
- […] if there is any justice up in heaven, Dr. Freud has been assigned a corner apartment with one of those little concrete balconies or "terraces," of the Collins Avenue condominium-tower variety, rigged out with a telescope and an infrared X-ray attachment that enables him to look down through...1988, Tom Wolfe, Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine

Examples of overstore in a sentence

It merely results in storing up energy at a very rapid rate; you can overstore and then you feel the intoxication of it, but that is overcome by a reasonable use of the breathing exercise.1923, Mary C. Ferriter, Truth of Life, Love, Liberty, page 100:
If the market cannot be counted on for supplies later in the season and information on crops and stocks is absent, those who are able will tend to overstore in their own households.1985, Agricultural Markets in the Semi-arid Tropics, page 310:
With improved protein diets, there seems to be biochemical message which tells the organisms to overstore essential amino acids and other brain chemicals.1985, Ted Tjossem, “Showcase/Forum Summarization Statement”, in The President's Committee on Mental Retardation: National Prevention...
Like fat cells, the spleen can overstore.2016, Steven Rosenblatt, Keith Kirts, The Birth of Acupuncture in America:

Forms of overstore

Verb
third-person singular present	overstores
present participle	overstoring
past participle	overstored
past	overstored
Noun
plural	overstores

Origin of overstore

From over- + store.

Questions about overstore

What does overstore mean?: Overstore means to overstock; to save more than is needed.
How do you use overstore in a sentence?: It merely results in storing up energy at a very rapid rate; you can overstore and then you feel the intoxication of it, but that is overcome by a reasonable use of the breathing exercise.
What part of speech is overstore?: Overstore can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
What is the past tense of overstore?: The past tense of overstore is overstored.

Words near overstore in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: overstore (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: 2026-09-02

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