overestimate
Americanverb (used with object)
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overestimates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
overestimated,
past participle, past
-
overestimating
present participle
-
to estimate at too high a value, amount, rate, or the like.
Don't overestimate the car's trade-in value.
-
to hold in too great esteem or to expect too much from.
Don't overestimate him—he's no smarter than you are.
noun
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overestimates
plural
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
overestimatesimple
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overestimatessimple
-
have overestimatedperfect
-
has overestimatedperfect
-
am overestimatingprogressive
-
are overestimatingprogressive
-
is overestimatingprogressive
-
have been overestimatingperfect progressive
-
has been overestimatingperfect progressive
Past
-
overestimatedsimple
-
had overestimatedperfect
-
was overestimatingprogressive
-
were overestimatingprogressive
-
had been overestimatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of overestimate
Explanation
If you're confident your favorite team will win the championship even though the star player is injured, you may want to reconsider: don't let your team spirit cause you to overestimate, or overvalue, the team's abilities. When you estimate something, you make a calculation or a judgment of its value. So, when you overestimate, you assign too much value to the thing you are judging. If you overestimate how much time you have left to get to school, you could be late. Likewise, if you overestimate how prepared you are for a test, you might end up with a poor grade. This verb is the opposite of underestimate, or “to assign too little value.”
Vocabulary lists containing overestimate
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East of Eden
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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:
It’s hard for investors to learn from their mistakes because they tend to underweight the importance of luck, overestimate the role of skill and “overinterpret what may be chance events,” says Alex Edmans.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
"If you are contacting a sample with a gloved hand, you're likely imparting these stearates that could overestimate your results."
From Science Daily ● Mar. 29, 2026
We always overestimate the speed at which these transitions disrupt existing industries.
From Barron's ● Mar. 27, 2026
Armour's letter said that education was facing a gap of £250m, and he could not "overestimate the financial challenge we face in seeking to address our funding gap".
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2026
“People tend to overestimate my character,” I say quietly.
From "Divergent" by Veronica Roth
NBCUniversal executive Mark Marshall publicly criticized Nielsen, saying it overestimates streaming viewership at the expense of traditional media companies’ valuations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 14, 2026
Unfortunately, the price action overestimates near-term profit possibility, Reese explained while cutting the stock to Underperform from Neutral.
From Barron's ● Mar. 6, 2026
Yet the American public consistently overestimates the level of crime, believing it to be at historic highs that constitute an epidemic.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2025
For any shot, everyone overestimates the likelihood of it going in.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2024
Although it is commonly believed that such a reader overestimates the weight of works of fiction, the opposite is true—he underestimates it.
From Materials and Methods of Fiction With an Introduction by Brander Matthews by Clayton Meeker Hamilton
The EU said AliExpress' "overestimated the effectiveness of its system in detecting and removing illegal products".
From Barron's ● Jul. 20, 2026
The wearables correctly identified REM cycles, but overestimated deep sleep—the hardest stage to identify without brain-wave readings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
He has admitted he overestimated how well his players would deal with the pressure of the Ashes, yet has to marry that with his determination to remove pressure from the dressing room.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
After recalibrating the data, the team found that emissions from land had been significantly overestimated in earlier models, but even after correction, land remained the dominant source.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 24, 2026
He was green, and he overestimated his resilience, but he was sufficiently skilled to last for sixteen weeks on little more than his wits and ten pounds of rice.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
That is one reason investors may be overestimating how hawkish Warsh will be on rates.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 29, 2026
There's a risk of people overestimating a robot's capabilities, he says.
From BBC ● May 28, 2026
But investors might be overestimating the odds that central banks will raise rates in response to the war.
From Barron's ● Apr. 27, 2026
Filosa said at the time of the announcement that the write-downs “largely reflect the cost of overestimating the pace of the energy transition that distanced us from many car buyers’ real-world needs, means and desires.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
My father has a bad habit of overestimating his charm—and also my mother’s patience.
From "Flush" by Carl Hiaasen
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.
