overspend
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
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to spend in excess of (one's desires or what one can afford or is allocated)
-
(tr; usually passive) to wear out; exhaust
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
overspendsimple
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overspendssimple
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have overspentperfect
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has overspentperfect
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am overspendingprogressive
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are overspendingprogressive
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is overspendingprogressive
-
have been overspendingperfect progressive
-
has been overspendingperfect progressive
Past
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overspentsimple
-
had overspentperfect
-
was overspendingprogressive
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were overspendingprogressive
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had been overspendingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of overspend
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:
Hull had an overspend of about £6m for the period to 2025-26.
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
The Gillies Report said university bosses and its governing body failed multiple times to identify the worsening crisis and continued to overspend instead of taking action.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026
‘The last thing somebody in college or just starting out needs to be doing is to overspend chasing rewards.’
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 9, 2026
I either overspend on food items, failing to take advantage of hidden deals as I frantically yet desperately attempt to restock my kitchen.
From Salon ● May 30, 2026
I am never called anything but Mollie, except when I overspend my allowance, and mother feels it her duty to scold me.
From The Fortunes of the Farrells by Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
He adds that, unlike rivals, Apple doesn’t have a cloud business to sell excess compute if it overspends on AI data centers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026
Carmy tends to brush off nearly all of her concepts, making Syd question whether she can find the culinary success that’s long eluded her at the side of a colleague who overspends and overreaches.
From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2025
But by the standards of government overspends, either would be unusually large.
From BBC ● Oct. 31, 2024
It said this could “constitute one of the largest year-ahead overspends against... forecasts outside of the pandemic years”.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2024
If he overspends his money he is bankrupt, and the person who overspends his strength is for the time physically bankrupt.
From A Practical Physiology by Blaisdell, Albert F.
Stocks sold off rapidly on worries that U.S. companies had overspent, but bounced back and continued climbing later in the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
Or they overspent on infrastructure they couldn’t operationalize and are now cutting to manage cash flow.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 4, 2025
The organisation which represents the 32 boroughs in the capital has revealed they overspent by £330m last year.
From BBC ● Apr. 1, 2025
They’re struggling, they’re in debt, they’re broke, they barely made rent, they’ve overspent, they’re asking for help.
From Salon ● Nov. 29, 2024
His aunt said, “He has overspent his power,” but she had no art to help him.
From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin
Hull would argue that this is not a result of regular operational overspending.
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026
Plenty of investors still think that the AI build-out could get messy, with companies overspending and Wall Street eventually weeding out the losers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
“Unchecked overspending and liability claims continue to be a major cause of financial troubles,” he said in a February statement, ahead of the mayor’s budget proposal, which offered a more hold-the-line approach.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
In other words, eliminating all of this overspending, even if that were possible, wouldn’t make a dent in total spending.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 29, 2026
They think I et up their savings in the failure," he went on, "when all I done is to bring 'em face to face with the fact that for years they've been overspending themselves.
From Christmas A Story by Solon, Leon V. (Leon Victor)
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.
