overcompensate
to compensate or reward excessively; overpay: Some stockholders feel the executives are being overcompensated and that bonuses should be reduced.
to exhibit psychological overcompensation; strive to overcome a sense of inferiority through overt, opposite behavior: The aggressive patient may be overcompensating, and be a profoundly shy person beneath the façade.
Origin of overcompensate
1Words Nearby overcompensate
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use overcompensate in a sentence
When the spine isn’t properly aligned other parts of your body will overcompensate and raise fatigue and stress levels.
Now, Lange says, defenses may be overcompensating for that trend and sealing the 3-point line at the expense of their 2-point defense.
Did Moving The Arc Bring The 3-Pointer To A Breaking Point? | Jake Lourim | February 1, 2021 | FiveThirtyEightIn the superhero realm, the trend has been to make villains into victims, whether it's Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker being bullied and ridiculed into pathology or “Wonder Woman 1984’s” Maxwell Lord violently overcompensating for the love he never had.
While Hollywood looked for perfect villains, they were hiding in plain sight | Ann Hornaday | January 15, 2021 | Washington PostSwift’s previous albums, wrote Laura Snapes for the Guardian, had been exhausting, filled with “the sense that one of pop’s all-time greatest songwriters is overcompensating despite her clear talent.”
As the energy factory breaks down, the authors explain, the cell sometimes tries to overcompensate, like pushing a damaged nuclear facility.
Breakthrough NASA Study Discovers Surprising Key to Astronauts’ Health in Space | Shelly Fan | December 2, 2020 | Singularity Hub
Gladwell argues that they are successful because they had to overcompensate when they were young for their difficulty reading.
Malcolm Gladwell In Five Minutes: What to Know to Pretend You’ve Read the New Book | Thomas Flynn | October 5, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
British Dictionary definitions for overcompensate
/ (ˌəʊvəˈkɒmpɛnˌseɪt) /
to compensate (a person or thing) excessively
(intr) psychol to engage in overcompensation
Derived forms of overcompensate
- overcompensatory, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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