1833 H. Martineau Cinnamon & Pearls vi. 102 A compensation for the loss occasioned by an over-supply.

1848 J. S. Mill Princ. Polit. Econ. I. ii. xv. §4. 487 Either from oversupply or from some slackening in the demand for his commodity.

1883 Science 14 Sept. 371/1 These questions..will enable the careful operator to avoid losses from imprudent investment, from over-supply of the markets, or from the depression of receipts.

1932 New Yorker 14 May 42/2 You will write things..that will get the public interested in that oversupply of pongee somebody is trying to unload.

1964 Times Rev. Industry Apr. 3/2 Until the oversupply position improves, there will not be enough work for Britain's shipyards.

1975 Physics Bull. Nov. 477/1 In Britain, despite the oversupply of staff and the shortage of money, every department is well equipped.

2001 Financial Times 27 Jan. 21/2 An additional measure of destroying low grade coffee, proposed at the meeting, to help cut oversupply.

1865 M. Eyre Lady's Walks South of France ii. 18 The markets at Bordeaux and Pau and Tarbes were over-supplied with fruit, butter, poultry, and eggs.

1880 Harper's Mag. May 815/1 The production will increase and immigration decrease until the local market is oversupplied, and then farming will be neither amusing nor profitable.

1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer (1891) 221 We are not over supplied with resources..as yet.

1925 Sci. Monthly Aug. 167 Whaleships weren't as a rule over-supplied with high-class provisions.

1992 K. Ohmae Borderless World (new ed.) x. 202 If one government oversupplies the money, it can leak out to the rest of the ILE and cause less serious inflation at home.