overachiever
Americannoun
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overachievers
plural
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a person who performs better or achieves more than people are generally expected to, often because of high ambition, pressure from family, etc..
Ever the overachiever, he reached his sales goal for the year a whopping five months early.
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a person who performs, especially academically, above the potential indicated by tests of their mental ability or aptitude.
We found many overachievers with modest SAT scores who nevertheless achieved high GPAs across a variety of majors.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of overachiever
First recorded in 1935–40; over- ( def. ) + achieve ( def. ) + -er 1 ( def. )
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:
Chicken, however, is omnipresent — the quiet overachiever of the protein world, endlessly adaptable and perennially in demand.
From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2026
If the bare minimum is enough for you to be seen and recognized for solid work, there might be no need to become an office overachiever.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025
Flack considered herself an overachiever, a stubborn perfectionist and was given to self-reflection.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 24, 2025
If you’re an overachiever who’s already listened to every single playlist?
From New York Times ● Oct. 3, 2023
To stay in shape, but also for the nature-connectedness-science-y beauty all around outside and for the overachiever challenge of distance.
From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti
“You get all of them on that same team and they’re overachievers in the same way that their coach is.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2026
So let's have look at the continent's biggest overachievers - have your say, tell us who we've missed and rank the top 10 below.
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2026
A team of overachievers filled with a roster of best friends combined chemistry, determination and toughness to overcome all odds.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2025
Like any friend group, “Next Gen NYC” is filled with overachievers and underachievers; people who have family money and people who work long hours, scraping by to make their way in the big city.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2025
It is not uncommon for doctors to be chronic overachievers; Beck wasn’t the first physician to go overboard with a new hobby.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
