Oversentence
verb
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To issue a sentence that is harsher than necessary. transitive
"The United States currently incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau. John C. Jeffries Jr., today’s morning lecturer, will propose ways to combat a prison system that often “oversentences and overpunishes.”"
Example
More examples"The United States currently incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau. John C. Jeffries Jr., today’s morning lecturer, will propose ways to combat a prison system that often “oversentences and overpunishes.”"
Etymology
From over- + sentence.
More for "oversentence"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.