overachiever
Americannoun
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overachievers
plural
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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.
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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:
Syndicated episodes of “Martha Stewart Living” upheld the attainability of elegance and the value of precise execution, appealing to my inner overachiever.
From Salon ● Jan. 30, 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
If you’re going to be an overachiever, be one like Schuyler Peters.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 21, 2024
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
“Every time a leftover freeze hits an overachiever bunch of flowers, humans panic. But the flowers just say, ‘We got this.
From "Blended" by Sharon M. Draper
The Brewers are the small-market overachievers, who somehow have retained their little-engine-that-could persona despite owning the best regular-season record in baseball last year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
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
It is not uncommon for doctors to be chronic overachievers; Beck wasn’t the first physician to go overboard with a new hobby.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
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