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overthink

British

/ ˌəʊvəˈθɪŋk /

verb

to spend more time thinking about something than is necessary or productive

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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overthink

Inexperience, he thinks, helped him not overthink the assignment.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2026

It holds heat, keeps its nerve, and moves easily from stovetop to oven to broiler and back again without asking you to switch vessels or overthink it.

From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2026

She added that being a mother to a toddler had been a "great distraction" and not given her the time to overthink.

From BBC ● Feb. 25, 2026

"Sometimes you can overthink too much about, oh, we're playing against England, we're playing against West Indies."

From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026

Then, before I can overthink it, I stick my hand into the open window and ruffle Nick’s hair.

From "Leah on the Offbeat" by Becky Albertalli

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023