overtax
Americanverb (used with object)
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to tax too heavily.
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to make too great demands on.
verb
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to tax too heavily
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to impose too great a strain on
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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overtaxsimple
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overtaxessimple
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have overtaxedperfect
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has overtaxedperfect
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am overtaxingprogressive
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are overtaxingprogressive
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is overtaxingprogressive
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have been overtaxingperfect progressive
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has been overtaxingperfect progressive
Past
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overtaxedsimple
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had overtaxedperfect
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was overtaxingprogressive
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were overtaxingprogressive
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had been overtaxingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of overtax
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:
The heavy rains and floods also forced Formula One to cancel this weekend’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix to not overtax emergency crews that were already stretched thin in responding to the emergency.
From Seattle Times ● May 17, 2023
Just scheduled rest for the 21-year-old shortstop, whom Martinez doesn’t want to overtax despite his age.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 7, 2022
However, experts believe it will overtax America's health care system because it will infect so many people, some of whom will inevitably become seriously ill.
From Salon ● Dec. 21, 2021
You overtax your relationships, battle exhaustion and your sense of normality crumbles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2021
He says, though, for me not to overtax my appetite just on that account because the eating is besides; he says we pays twenty-seven dollars and a half a day just for our rooms.
From J. Poindexter, Colored by Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
She never looks less than perfectly photoshopped, but the production ultimately overtaxes her strengths.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 9, 2025
Venable distills his situation into a scene, which he then overtaxes into a full-scale play.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2025
Putting pencil to paper forces people to give spatial information—something that most liars have not prepared for as part of planning their lies and that, therefore, overtaxes their mental resources.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 27, 2011
Pidgeon's voice is light and agile -- it couldn't fill up a concert hall, but she never overtaxes herself and instead achieves an understated, coffee-bar intimacy.
From Time Magazine Archive
The demand now upon the building overtaxes its capacity.
From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 11 Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen by Hubbard, Elbert
The ship has experienced sewage problems, and sailors are overtaxed and some are even considering leaving the Navy after returning home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
When the overtaxed systems lost pressure, fire hydrants ran dry.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2025
But on a few days each year—particularly during heat waves, when people are using air conditioners—the grid gets overtaxed.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2025
Finally, the resistance is not being waged only by the small, under-resourced, and overtaxed yet committed group of activists who have been sounding the alarm and fighting the fight in lonely trenches for years.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2025
Her voice climbs in pitch, as if she could use it to lend strength to my overtaxed arms.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
On both occasions, the science demonstrates that humans are overtaxing our oceans' ability to offset climate change.
From Salon ● May 9, 2024
To successfully ramp up Californians’ reliance on electric vehicles over the next decade without overtaxing the state’s power grid, more drivers will need to charge their cars during the day, a Stanford study has found.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2022
But in the Philippines, government officials and parents remained hesitant, with fears that schoolchildren could bring the virus to homes crowded with multiple generations of family members, potentially overtaxing an already creaky health care system.
From New York Times ● Aug. 22, 2022
Tesla is asking its customers in Texas to avoid charging their electric vehicles during peak times in order to prevent overtaxing the state’s power grid.
From The Verge ● Jul. 13, 2022
In the education journals of the day, there were constant worries about overtaxing students or blunting their natural abilities through too much schoolwork.
From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
