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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

You shouldn't overthink your first job, agrees Charlotte Bosworth, chief executive of apprenticeship provider Lifetime Training, which works with brands like Nando's and B&Q as well as the Department for International Trade.

From BBC

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

From BBC

“I tend to overthink it when I know too much.”

From Los Angeles Times

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

From Barron's

You can overthink things and overinflate the risks, wonder if fears are plausible and reframing them - it lets me disregard thoughts that are unhelpful, like 'what if I fall?'.

From BBC

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