overstimulate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to stimulate (something) to an excessive or harmful degree.
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Physiology. to cause (someone) to experience sensory overload.
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Physiology. to cause (a gland, nerve, or other organ) to become overactive and produce an abnormal increase in its usual activity.
verb (used without object)
Other Word Forms
Explanation
Overstimulate means to overwhelm someone, or make something overactive. Feeling angry, frustrated, or upset in a noisy or brightly lit space might suggest that you're easy to overstimulate. Caffeine might overstimulate your brain and make it difficult to sleep, or loud music which is fun at first might eventually make you feel overwhelmed, or overstimulated. Stimulate means "to provide stimulus or input." Overstimulate means "to provide an overwhelming amount of input."
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:
In children, this process is already happening at a high rate, so retinol offers no real benefit and can overstimulate the skin.
From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026
The pulsating music, giant inflatables tossed into the crowd and sudden blasts of fog can overstimulate kids.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2025
Making a room hypertransparent for people who are deaf may overstimulate people who are autistic.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 20, 2023
Very rarely, heparin recipients form antibodies that both attack and overstimulate platelets, said Dr. Geoffrey Barnes, a clot expert at the University of Michigan.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 13, 2021
They are overloaded with these expensive, mechanical toys which overstimulate them at first and later bore them.
From Your Child: Today and Tomorrow by Gruenberg, Sidonie Matzner
I’m sure the scientific explanation involves ecstatic brain hormones, leading to an overstimulated smile reflex.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
But if they are overstimulated, they will have the opposite effect, creating stomach cramping, vomiting, nausea, irritability, and panic when exposed to even a small amount.
From Slate ● Jun. 13, 2026
I get so overstimulated at Suppa Club, so the day after, I just have to sit in silence by myself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 11, 2024
"It's where the prefrontal cortex is overloaded, overstimulated, and you make all kinds of dangerous mistakes when you're multitasking behind the wheel," he said.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 29, 2024
I even find myself telling her about how humanity is off course, how we’re overconnected, overstimulated, undernourished.
From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy
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.
