Overstretch

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of stretching something too far or beyond available resources.
Verb
  1. 1
    To stretch too far.

    "The idle triumphes, maskes, lasciuious showes And prodigall gifts bestowed on Gaueston, Haue drawne thy treasure drie, and made thee weake, The murmuring commons ouerstretched hath."

  2. 2
    strain abnormally wordnet
  3. 3
    To stretch over something.

Synonyms

All synonyms
inflateoverdrawoverextendoverstrainpullpull

Example

More examples

"The idle triumphes, maskes, lasciuious showes And prodigall gifts bestowed on Gaueston, Haue drawne thy treasure drie, and made thee weake, The murmuring commons ouerstretched hath."

Etymology

From Middle English overstrecchen, corresponding to over- + stretch. Compare Dutch overstrekken (“to overstretch”), German überstrecken (“to overstretch”).

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