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:
“It doesn’t make sense for us to overuse or overgraze the land when we need to come back to it,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2025
They're not inclined to overgraze because they're always moving.
From Salon ● Nov. 27, 2022
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
"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
By controlling deer and elk populations, gray wolves allow overgrazed vegetation and trees to regrow, creating ripple effects that boost biodiversity and improve the overall health of the landscape.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2025
He never saw them as a kid, when much of the rangeland near Sidney, Nebraska, was overgrazed or farmed.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 25, 2023
"If an auroch or mammoth overgrazed, then the plant alkaloids would make it not feel very well," he says.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2023
Some trucks carried hay bales which farmers dumped into dusty corrals or into minuscule overgrazed plots for horses and sheep.
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
Hardin used the example of herders sharing a common pasture, where each herder’s rational decision to add one more animal to graze would eventually lead to overgrazing and the pasture’s destruction.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2025
While overgrazing is not yet a widespread occurrence across the Western Atlantic, it already occurs in subtropical to temperate waters around Australia and in the Mediterranean.
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.
