overshoot
/ˈoʊ.vɚˌʃut/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.52 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The situation where the population of a species exceeds its environment's carrying capacity.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
The portion of a letter extending above the capline of other letters of the same font, or the relative degree of such extent.
Countable; Uncountable
verb
To go past something; to go too far.
verb
To exceed.
Example Sentences
- "Let's see if we can predict and correct for the overshoot."
- "With appropriate choice and action such uncontrolled decline could be avoided; overshoot could instead be resolved by a conscious effort to reduce humanity's demand on the planet."
- "Population overshoot is therefore unlikely to yield to management. Rather, the usual suspects will enter the scene and do their thing: starvation, disease, […] violence […] [and] death […]."
- "Our core ecological problem is not climate change. It is overshoot, of which global warming is a symptom."
- "The portion resting beyond the capline or baseline is called overshoot."
- "The bowl of the D and the O are usually not identical, as most D forms do not have overshoot or undershoot."
Etymology
From Middle English overshoten, oversheten (“to shoot beyond, shoot past, pour down from above”), perhaps continuing Old English ofersċēotan (“to shoot down”), equivalent to over- + shoot.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈoʊ.vɚˌʃut/
- British English: /ˈəʊ.və.ʃuːt/