overthink
overthink verb: to think or analyze too much.
Verb (1)
overthink (third-person singular simple present overthinks, present participle overthinking, simple past and past participle overthought)
- To think or analyze too much.
- Don't overthink the problem. It's not that difficult.
- Mr. Trump “thinks about it as just like whatever entertains him, but as he’s doing that, he’s bringing people together,’” Mr. Ceraso said in a phone interview on Sunday before the event. Democrats, he added, should “stop trying to overthink it.”2026 June 14, Bayliss Wagner, “Trump’s U.F.C. Event Comes as Backing of Young Men, Once a Strength, Wanes”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Antonyms:
- underthink
- To think too highly (of); overestimate
- So to think of self as not to overthink — to think of yourself with sober, moral judgment.1859, Henry Ward Beecher, Sermons, page 25
- Synonyms:
- overapproximate, overstate, overestimate, overhold, overrate, overreckon
Verb (2)
overthink (third-person singular simple present overthinks, present participle overthinking, simple past and past participle overthought)
- To think about; think over
- But when I dred that wou'd not work,
I overthought me of a Wile
How I might at my leisure lurk,
My graceless Guardain to beguile.1695, J.D. Albany, The Banishment of poverty
- Synonyms:
- bethink, mull, quander, afterthink, agitate, call to mind, chew, chew over, chew the cud, cogitate
- But when I dred that wou'd not work,
overthink meaning in Indonesian
overthink in Indonesian
- to think (sth) over
- terus memikirkan
- to think or analyze too much
- lajak pikir, pikir berlebih
Synonyms of overthink
22 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of overthink
| third-person singular present | overthinks |
|---|---|
| present participle | overthinking |
| past participle | overthought |
| past | overthought |
Origin of overthink
From over- + think.
From Middle English *overthenken, *overthenchen (compare Middle English overthinken (“to grieve; have regrets; be sorry; be anxious”)), from Old English oferþenċan (“to think over; consider”), equivalent to over- + think.
Words formed from overthink
Questions about overthink
- What does overthink mean?
- Overthink means to think or analyze too much.
- What is overthink in Indonesian?
- Overthink in Indonesian is terus memikirkan, lajak pikir, pikir berlebih. See Overthink meaning in Indonesian.
- What part of speech is overthink?
- Overthink is a verb.
- What is the past tense of overthink?
- The past tense of overthink is overthought.
Words near overthink in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: overthink (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-overthink.ogg.
Cite this entry: “overthink.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overthink. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.