overachiever
Americannoun
-
a person who performs better or achieves more than people are generally expected to, often because of high ambition, pressure from family, etc..
Ever the overachiever, he reached his sales goal for the year a whopping five months early.
-
a person who performs, especially academically, above the potential indicated by tests of their mental ability or aptitude.
We found many overachievers with modest SAT scores who nevertheless achieved high GPAs across a variety of majors.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of overachiever
First recorded in 1935–40; over- ( def. ) + achieve ( def. ) + -er 1 ( def. )
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:
Chicken, however, is omnipresent — the quiet overachiever of the protein world, endlessly adaptable and perennially in demand.
From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2026
If the bare minimum is enough for you to be seen and recognized for solid work, there might be no need to become an office overachiever.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025
Mr. Cherry is best known for his role as the snarky overachiever Dylan in the dystopian Apple TV+ workplace thriller series “Severance.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 6, 2024
Meet Eric Eames, a high-elevation overachiever in the Northwest climbing community.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 18, 2023
To stay in shape, but also for the nature-connectedness-science-y beauty all around outside and for the overachiever challenge of distance.
From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti
Opta's predicted table had Villa finishing 12th and, currently fifth, they are the biggest overachievers of the season ahead of Sunderland.
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2026
A lot of us big readers are overachievers or rewards driven.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 19, 2026
Like any friend group, “Next Gen NYC” is filled with overachievers and underachievers; people who have family money and people who work long hours, scraping by to make their way in the big city.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2025
Let’s bury the narrative that these Dawgs were a group of overachievers who didn’t belong in the same class as the country’s elite.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 1, 2023
Dwaine was proud of his son, who had started at defensive tackle for Permian in 1987 when the team, the biggest bunch of overachievers ever, had gone all the way to the state semifinals.
From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger
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.
