Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To engage in overcompensation.
- v. To pay (someone) too much; compensate excessively.
Wiktionary
- v. To do an excessive amount in one area in an effort to overcome a perceived lack in another area.
- v. To provide excessive pay or reward for work performed.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. to make excessive corrections for fear of making an error.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make up for shortcomings or a feeling of inferiority by exaggerating good qualities
- v. make excessive corrections for fear of making an error
Examples
“In the process, it's easy to overcompensate, which is what unnerves me about the niche response to "The Social Network" among people old enough to be Zuckerberg's parents.”
“It is not uncommon for relatives who live at a distance to try to overcompensate for their absence and perhaps guilty feelings by playing the hero or making a larger than life impact on the situation.”
The Huffington Post: Judith Johnson: How to Handle Family Dynamics Around a Dying Loved One
“These variations can confuse the oxygen sensors in a car, which can make the fuel injection overcompensate and produce more pollution or even rough-running.”
Consumer Reports: Move over E85, here comes E15. EPA proposes adding more ethanol to gasoline blends
“Sometimes (not all the time, of course), when vegetarians or vegans abandon their dietary ethics and return to the omnivorous fold, so to speak, they overcompensate.”
at the crossroads of desire and fear, we find such things as this « paper fruit
“Either they will overcompensate already overcompensated executives, or create new jobs.”
“The greatest, most obvious mistake that American administrations make is to overcompensate for the flaws of the previous one.”
“Some of us give ourselves up completely and become the mask, while others overcompensate and turn every dustup into the Montgomery bus boycott.”
“The body tends to overcompensate in favor of the healthy cells, so as long as the ratio of stress is lower than the amount of good cell byproducts, the strong, healthy cells become more plentiful and stick around in the body, defending you against all kinds of other menacing evils that develop with age.”
“Or will they overcompensate and depict them as Hutu warriors?”
“Worthwhile antiques, much like worthwhile people, exude an aura of truth and don't need to overcompensate.”
The Huffington Post: Mark L. Walberg: What I've Learned On Antiques Roadshow
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘overcompensate’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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over-
above; upper; superior; eminent
overbearing, overrate, overshoot, overwhelm, overexert, overachiever, overact, overadjust, overambitious, overanalyze, overarching, overbooked and 42 more...
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five syllables
ontogenesis, phylogenesis, concatenation, androgenesis, extra textual, inexorably, spagyrically, apophenia, iatrochemist, monocotyloid, morphological, parthenogenic and 941 more...
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mager's Words
enigmatic, pragmatic, pulchritudinous, nincompoop, annihilation, sociality, entailment, acrosome, egalitarian, culture, technocracy, shenanigan and 541 more...
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dyy's Words
ambivalence, irony, double-edged sword, paradox, struggle, plunge, buoy, pigeon-hole, ultimately, status quo, fuel, undermine and 230 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Words & Phrases #1 (New)
bimbo, himbo, vacuous, aftermath, boffin, aftereffect, scrub, hashtag, obnoxious, captivate, cultivate, throttle and 64 more...
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