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
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
"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
The group claims the invasive deer have destroyed natural habitat — including vegetation found only on the island — and exacerbated the risk of soil erosion in overgrazed areas.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2024
"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
Thus, just about every small pasture was overgrazed and had been overgrazed ever since the government and the Ladd Devine Company appropriated most of the rest of the county some one hundred years ago.
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
According to conservationists, the species has suffered at the hands of illegal poaching, overgrazing, drought, and disease passed from farm animals.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2024
As tropical herbivores move into subtropical waters, overgrazing may prevent subtropical seagrass meadows from persisting in these environments.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 6, 2024
But on the black land twenty minutes down the road, the soil has been decimated by years of overfarming and overgrazing.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
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