Overpunishment

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Excessive punishment. countable, uncountable

    "Parental overpunishment could very well be the major factor in producing the distractability, the impulsivity, the social incompetence, and above all, the angry anti-authority attitudes so commonly seen in delinquent misconduct."

Example

More examples

"Parental overpunishment could very well be the major factor in producing the distractability, the impulsivity, the social incompetence, and above all, the angry anti-authority attitudes so commonly seen in delinquent misconduct."

Etymology

From over- + punishment.

More for "overpunishment"

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.