overextend
/əʊv(ə)rɪkˈstɛnd
/ /əʊv(ə)rɛkˈstɛnd/verb [with object]
1Make (something) too long: at nine minutes plus the song is somewhat overextended...
- There should be a mark showing the safe limit for the height of the seat - go beyond that, and it could be dangerous because the seat is overextended and so not very strong.
- Today, the state is likely to be seen as the lesser of privacy-invading evils, and even as a source of protection for our privacy, rather than as an entity that should not be allowed to overextend its reach into our private lives.
- Hitters easily can read the ball out of his hand because his delivery lacks deception and he overextends his arm.
2Impose an excessive burden of work or commitments on (someone): he should not overextend himself on the mortgage...
- Choose a vehicle that won't overextend you financially.
- It is a twentieth-century classic, and besides, by the 1970s she was too overextended to complete such an assignment.
- Without such help his situation proved impossible, for he was greatly overextended.
Derivatives
overextension
- They explicitly stated in their majority opinion that this decision could not be used to set a precedent based on their ridiculous overextension of the due-process clause in the 14th amendment.
- Because the airways are heterogeneously narrowed, the less involved parts of the lungs may undergo regional overextension when exposed to high inflation pressures and rupture.
- This optimism contributes to the underestimation of risk, overextension of credit, excessive increases in asset prices, overinvestment in physical capital and, in some cases, overly buoyant consumer expenditures.