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  1. overkill love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Destructive nuclear capacity exceeding the amount needed to destroy an enemy.
  2. n. Excessive killing.
  3. n. An excess of what is necessary or appropriate for a particular end: "government overkill in dealing with dissent” ( Jesse Unruh).
  4. v. To destroy (an enemy or enemy target) with more nuclear force than necessary.

Wiktionary

  1. n. literally A destructive capacity that exceeds that needed to destroy an enemy; especially with nuclear weapons.
  2. n. idiomatic An unnecessary excess of whatever is needed to achieve a goal.
  3. v. transitive To destroy something with more (nuclear) force than is required.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the capability to obliterate a target with more weapons (especially nuclear weapons) than are required
  2. n. any effort that seems to go farther than would be necessary to achieve its goal

Etymologies

  1. From over- +‎ kill. (Wiktionary)

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‘overkill’ has been looked up 1568 times, loved by 1 person, added to 11 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 15.