overkill.
A destructive capacity that exceeds that needed to destroy an enemy; especially with nuclear weapons.
Meaning & usage
A destructive capacity that exceeds that needed to destroy an enemy; especially with nuclear weapons.
Destruction beyond what is necessary to kill, especially in murder.
An unnecessary excess of whatever is needed to achieve a goal.
24 hours of TV coverage of the US election verged on overkill.
Should I give you yet more homework, or would that be overkill?
An unnecessary excess of disposal because of too high criteria of inspection.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *úp Proto-Indo-European *-er Proto-Indo-European *upér Proto-Germanic *uber Old English ofer- Middle English over- English over- Dutch kilbor. English kill English overkill From over- + kill.
To destroy something with more (nuclear) force than is required.
To dispose of too many items because of too-high criteria of inspection.
To do something excessive to achieve a goal.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *úp Proto-Indo-European *-er Proto-Indo-European *upér Proto-Germanic *uber Old English ofer- Middle English over- English over- Dutch kilbor. English kill English overkill From over- + kill.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.