Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Destructive nuclear capacity exceeding the amount needed to destroy an enemy.
- n. Excessive killing.
- n. An excess of what is necessary or appropriate for a particular end: "government overkill in dealing with dissent” ( Jesse Unruh).
- v. To destroy (an enemy or enemy target) with more nuclear force than necessary.
Wiktionary
- n. literally A destructive capacity that exceeds that needed to destroy an enemy; especially with nuclear weapons.
- n. idiomatic An unnecessary excess of whatever is needed to achieve a goal.
- v. transitive To destroy something with more (nuclear) force than is required.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the capability to obliterate a target with more weapons (especially nuclear weapons) than are required
- n. any effort that seems to go farther than would be necessary to achieve its goal
Etymologies
- From over- + kill. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Like Marcos, Mrs. Arroyo ran a campaign in 2004 to which the label overkill equally applies.”
“But critical overkill is a very popular approach still to writing about books.”
“Right well what I mean by it being overkill is that I don't think data recovery is a good enough reason, in that there are easier ways of recovering data without partitioning.”
Separate Data From Windows On A Standalone Partition | Lifehacker Australia
“With all the election coverage in overkill mode right now, it might to play a little “what if”.”
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - What fictional President would you elect!
“If overkill is the argument here any one of you using a larger caliber than me should hang your head in shame.”
Way Out There: Shooting (And Hunting With) The .50 Caliber Browning Machine Gun Cartridge
“In this world view objecting to isreali overkill is “anti jewish”, and objecting to american troops raping and killing innocent iraqis with impunity is “anti-american”.”
“As a result, the courts are bound by these statutory damages, which often result in overkill (ie, a teenager being fined for tens of thousands of dollars for downloading the latest Brittany Spears single).”
“BBN and ARPA decided that the ruggedized Honeywell 516, reflecting too much worry about reliability, was an expression of overkill.”
“Hey, if anyone knows what grotesque overkill is – it’s the Jews!”
“This sammich-needin’ quality is frequently present in overkill quantities in science-fiction movies, because everyone wears leotards.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘overkill’.
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EU Buzz - ALL words and expressions
A combined list of
1. EU Buzz - single words
2. EU Buzz - collocations
3. EU Buzz - the 100 most active
collocation constituentsabsorption capacity, absorption rate, acceding country, accession candidate, accession countries, accession country, accession criteria, accession cycle, accession negotia..., accession partner..., accession priorities, accession treaty and 2650 more...
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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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EU Buzz - single words (1+2+3)
1. Strictly EU terms with special European meaning used only in the EU
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2. Keywords central to the understanding of the EU (people working for the EU are usually able to give thematic...acceleration, action, additionality, administrator, agenda, agricultural, agri-environmental, agriflation, agri-food, applicant, approach, assent and 1325 more...
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WF - nominal compounds (figurative)
An extensive list I have been working on for quite some time. Feel free to add more of the kind if you miss any.
brainstorming, upside, downside, goldplating, bikeshedding, mudslinging, downgrading, headhunter, streamlining, mainstreaming, gerrymandering, frontloading and 503 more...
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GCI
spinster, maiden, happy-go-lucky, homonym, ill-at-ease, saw red, out of sorts, hot under the collar, taken aback, pen-names, alias, shoelaces and 378 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 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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Downwind
An short hike though the 'poetry of power'
overkill, fallout, doomsday, downwinder, shelter, permissive action...
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working list
overkill, premonition, discombobulation, golliwogs, guerilla, paraphernalia, banter, gambit, atonement, leeway, ingenuity, haberdashery and 164 more...
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swizzle's Words
quixotic, flux, serendipity, renaissance, sprezzatura, lucid, influx, myriad, craft, swizzle, dystopia, occident and 25 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for overkill.
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