overstock
Americanverb (used with object)
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overstocks,
present (3rd person singular)
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overstocked,
past participle, past
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overstocking
present participle
noun
verb
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to hold or supply (a commodity) in excess of requirements
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to run more farm animals on (a piece of land) than it is capable of maintaining
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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overstocksimple
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overstockssimple
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have overstockedperfect
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has overstockedperfect
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am overstockingprogressive
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are overstockingprogressive
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is overstockingprogressive
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have been overstockingperfect progressive
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has been overstockingperfect progressive
Past
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overstockedsimple
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had overstockedperfect
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was overstockingprogressive
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were overstockingprogressive
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had been overstockingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of overstock
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:
Or, I overstock ingredients, failing to take inventory of what I already have and letting them rot in the hidden corners of the vegetable crisper.
From Salon ● May 30, 2026
During the early days of selling books online, he bought publisher overstock and made a nice living on eBay before Amazon put the squeeze on retail prices.
From Slate ● Mar. 25, 2026
Several companies are building marketplaces that aggregate idle capacity — consumer GPUs, academic clusters, enterprise overstock — and resell it at a fraction of centralized data-center costs.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 3, 2025
On Facebook Marketplace, he tries to buy more overstock, such as cans of P&G’s Febreze room spray that he purchases at bargain-basement prices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
I’d grabbed it at work, overstock they were looking to dump, and now I knew why: It was disgusting.
From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin
But some retailers began abandoning certain product lines after grappling with product shortages and overstocks during the pandemic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
The onsite inventory includes many new materials, overstocks, last year’s models and construction-project misorders.
From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2023
Raccoons seem to regard humans as the rube roommate who overstocks the fridge and conscientiously cleans up after everyone else.
From Slate ● Sep. 30, 2016
His work includes tableaux of empty shelves, overstocks of completely unrelated products in shuttered departments, and mannequins facing inward, half naked and seemingly ashamed.
From BusinessWeek ● Jan. 30, 2014
They are first-rate business men: no auctions, which I detest: no overstocks, which will be the ruin of New York; well assorted, and in good condition.
From Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic by George Moore
Then, when demand slowed, customers would end up overstocked, prices would plunge, and memory makers would fall on hard times.
From Barron's ● Jan. 2, 2026
It says that the price offered was because the company was overstocked, and the couple wanted a quick sale.
From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2025
The retail context is where approximately 14 per cent of avoidable food waste occurs as foods are often overstocked by grocery stores prioritizing constant availability at the expense of wasted product.
From Salon ● Apr. 22, 2024
In general, it’s difficult to completely attribute a fire to any individual factor, because flames are often fueled by a complex interplay of conditions — anything from overstocked forests to wind, Abatzoglou said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2024
"Reckon they must be overstocked with yearlings East."
From The Boy Scouts On The Range by Lieut. Howard Payson
The Swedish company is working through a series of operational improvements that includes cutting its reliance on Asian supply chains to speed up delivery of new collections while limiting overstocking and in turn reducing discounting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
Products are donated by food industry partners from surplus stock due to overstocking or seasonal packaging.
From BBC ● Nov. 18, 2025
As retailers try to recover from overstocking that has led to discounting in the United States, Puma said its inventories fell by 20.3% compared to their level on Sept. 30 last year.
From Reuters ● Oct. 24, 2023
Rather than overstocking on perishables and other products, buying appropriate quantities of food reduces waste.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 28, 2021
Unrestricted grazing had led to friction between individuals, the deterioration of much of the range through overstocking, and serious injury to the forests and stream flow.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 6 "Foraminifera" to "Fox, Edward" by Various
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.
