overgraze
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Etymology
Origin of overgraze
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 trick, Dobson said, is making sure that the cows don’t overgraze, which could deplete the soil and release greenhouse gases stored within it.
From Salon ● May 10, 2019
Officials say the horses overgraze the land and negatively impact the environment, a problem compounded by the extensive drought.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 2, 2015
“They tend to overgraze the vegetation around water sources,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2015
"You could overgraze an arid land and convert it permanently to desert—that's a local threshold," Kareiva explains.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 7, 2013
Hardin’s idea explains why public bathrooms are so gross, why people litter, and, according to his original example, why farmers will let their cows overgraze communal fields.
From BusinessWeek ● Jul. 26, 2012
Finally, four days after Bamberger took his company public, in 1969, he bought the land of his dreams: 3,000 horribly overgrazed and eroded acres of derelict ranchland in Johnson City, Texas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
"If an auroch or mammoth overgrazed, then the plant alkaloids would make it not feel very well," he says.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2023
Sanctuaries such as Tsavo East National Park in Kenya had emerged as “overpopulated, overgrazed wasteland,” he argued, as elephants and rhinos struggled to find food and eventually starved by the thousands.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 26, 2020
It arose in part from court rulings that said public range land was being overgrazed, ushering in new restrictions for the livestock industry.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2019
He bent expertly between barbed wire strands and crossed a wide, soggy, overgrazed field, part of which was honeycombed with treacherous hummocks and leached-out grass clumps.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
According to a 2019 study by the Nairobi-based African Forest Forum, Sudan had already lost nearly half of its forested land since 1960 due to agricultural expansion, firewood collection and overgrazing.
From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026
This physical overgrazing mirrors the exploitation of the region’s social commons.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2025
As tropical herbivores move into subtropical waters, overgrazing may prevent subtropical seagrass meadows from persisting in these environments.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 6, 2024
Ms Corbett's farm uses conservation grazing, which keeps natural habitats in good condition by preventing both overgrazing and undergrazing.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2023
Slash-and-burn agriculture, industrial tropical deforestation and overgrazing are rampant today.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
