MEANING
To make commitments that go beyond the money, abilities or resources available to support them.
Use it for
describing borrowing beyond repayment capacity; showing a team taking on more work than it can manage; warning that expansion exceeds available resources; distinguishing ambitious effort from an unsustainable commitmentDescribes commitments outrunning available financial, organizational or personal capacity. Writing functions: Significance / Scope.
Words that belong together
- overextend yourself
- financially overextend
- overextend a team
On the page
Taking on three additional surveys overextended the team and weakened its ability to check the data.
The firm overextended itself by borrowing for expansion before its existing contracts generated enough cash.
Word forms
- Base
- overextend
- Past tense
- overextended
- Past participle
- overextended
- Present participle
- overextending
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- overextend
- Present continuous
- am/is/are overextending
- Present perfect
- have/has overextended
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been overextending
- Past
- overextended
- Past continuous
- was/were overextending
- Past perfect
- had overextended
- Past perfect continuous
- had been overextending
- Future
- will overextend
- Future continuous
- will be overextending
- Future perfect
- will have overextended
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been overextending
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Transitive or intransitive; often reflexive: overextend yourself. Base overextend; third-person overextends; past and past participle overextended; present participle overextending; future will overextend. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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