overdrive
Americanverb (used with object)
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to push or carry to excess; overwork.
-
to drive too hard.
noun
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Machinery, Automotive. a device containing a gear set at such ratio and arrangement as to provide a drive shaft speed greater than the engine crankshaft speed.
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Also called hyperdrive. Informal. a state of intense activity or productivity.
The political campaign has shifted into overdrive.
noun
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a very high gear in a motor vehicle used at high speeds to reduce wear and save fuel
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in a state of intense activity
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into a state of intense activity
verb
Etymology
Origin of overdrive
First recorded before 950; Middle English overdriven “to cover over, overpower”; Old English oferdrīfan “to drive away, overthrow”; equivalent to over- ( def. ) + drive ( def. )
Vocabulary lists containing overdrive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The higher temperatures promote algae growth by allowing their metabolisms to shift into overdrive.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2026
Mr. Hernández has a febrile energy that finds him bounding around the stage with a convincingly youthful, manic intensity, as if new love has pushed his adrenaline into overdrive.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Using human Alzheimer's brain cells and other experimental models, the team discovered a chemical change that can push the brain's immune response into overdrive.
From Science Daily ● May 31, 2026
She was hired as an equity research analyst in October 1999, just as the dot-com bull run was shifting into overdrive.
From MarketWatch ● May 15, 2026
I halted the car in front of his building, my mind still in blurry overdrive.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
His music married the pomp of musical theater with the overdriven emotions of rock ‘n’ roll, a combination unveiled on “Bat Out of Hell,” the 1977 album he wrote for Meat Loaf.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 20, 2021
For years, the title of the band’s first single, “Young Hearts Spark Fire,” was a rallying cry, and the pair’s overdriven, heart-on-sleeve approach reached its apotheosis on 2012’s “Celebration Rock.”
From Washington Post ● Jul. 10, 2018
Musselwhite’s tones range from Little Walter-like overdriven vamps to a caressing contribution reminiscent of Larry Adler on the excellent album-ending ballad “Nothing at All.”
From Washington Times ● Mar. 29, 2018
Some sounds are tapered and elegant, some overdriven and wild.
From New York Times ● Jul. 18, 2014
The work was genuine work, and we were not overdriven.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
I’ve been amplifying the ukulele through a pick-up and then overdriving it in a really great tube amp, so the texture became not the stereotypical strum of the ukulele.
From New York Times ● Apr. 17, 2011
The Clinton tried with me, and I had to keep my esper carefully aimed at the road ahead because I was definitely overdriving my eyesight and reaction-time.
From Highways in Hiding by Smith, George Oliver
He also knows that overdriving will only shorten the days of his usefulness; he therefore wisely lets him stagger by unmolested, with his light load.
From The Pirate City An Algerine Tale by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael)
To diminish the inducement for overdriving, the method of paying the overseers by crop shares, which commonly prevailed in the colonial period, was generally replaced in the nineteenth century by that of fixed salaries.
From American Negro Slavery A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime by Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell
Did you never think of it,—men are cheap, and machinery is dear; many a superintendent is dismissed for overdriving a delicate machine, who wouldn't be dismissed for overdriving an overtaxed man.
From The New Freedom A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People by Wilson, Woodrow
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
