Thesaurus results for OVERREACHING

overreaching

verb

present participle of overreach

as in thwarting

to get the better of through cleverness a real estate developer who is always trying to overreach his competitors, fair means or foul

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

as in exceeding

to go beyond the limit of the mountain climbers overreached their abilities and paid for it dearly

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of overreaching While most judges have categorized such requests as overreaching or for an improper purpose, two out of three judges on the panel ruled that there was nothing out of line about the QueerDoc request. — Theresa Gaffney, STAT, 20 Aug. 2026 Republican lawmakers disagree, saying that the approval is just another example of an overreaching government. — Tom Wait, CBS News, 19 Aug. 2026 His overreaching executive authority and voter suppression attempts amount to subversive governance. — Letters To The Editor, The Orlando Sentinel, 19 Aug. 2026 This should be a welcome sign for every broadcaster who has felt the weight of this overreaching government pressure in silence. — Lillian Rizzo, CNBC, 18 Aug. 2026 But stars Newsom and Schwarzenegger frequently fanned at the plate while overreaching. — Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 2026 Where supporters see government intervening to solve problems of everyday people struggling to afford groceries, others see a socialist mayor overreaching to take aim at a powerful symbol of America’s riches. — Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Money, 15 Aug. 2026 The grand jury subpoena was filed in April and was almost immediately met with resistance from Fulton County officials, who argued the request was overreaching and came from baseless claims of election fraud six years ago. — Irene Wright, USA Today, 8 July 2026 In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party has opportunistically seized on air-conditioning, portraying it as an urgent quality-of-life issue that moralizing environmentalists and overreaching technocrats have ignored. — Thomas Chatterton Williams, The Atlantic, 28 June 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for overreaching

Verb

The purpose of antitrust was to prevent companies from getting too large by taking over companies and swallowing them up and thwarting competition.

— John E. McDonough, STAT, 16 Oct. 2026
South Africa hopes were pinned on Markram, who has a history of thwarting the Australians in the fourth innings.

— ABC News, ABC News, 13 Oct. 2026

Definition of thwarting

Verb

But looks are deceiving in this case – just like the 3X Plus and 3X before it, the trailer stretches out via three individual telescopic segments that emerge at the push of a button.

— New Atlas, New Atlas, 26 Oct. 2026
Facebook’s lawyers argued that the state failed to prove whether people were actually harmed by these deceiving statements.

— Mikella Schuettler, Fortune, 21 Oct. 2026

Definition of deceiving

Verb

But in terms of student achievement, Asian students have performed more like white students, frequently surpassing white students academically.

— Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, 19 Oct. 2026
Simulating real-world quantum errors Last year, JUPITER simulated a full 50-qubit universal quantum computer under ideal, noiseless conditions, surpassing the previous 48-qubit record established by Jülich researchers in 2019 on Japan’s K computer.

— Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 19 Oct. 2026

Definition of surpassing

Verb

Fernandes points out the prevalence of tactical voting — when voters abandon their preferred candidate for one with a better chance of winning or defeating a rival — as an explanation for the first-round surprise in early October.

— Alessandra Freitas, CNN Money, 25 Oct. 2026
Eisenkot argued that Israel needed to concentrate its military resources on defeating Hamas in the south before embarking on another major conflict.

— Eric Cortellessa, Time, 25 Oct. 2026

Definition of defeating

Verb

The original 1960s cars had legendary status dominating the Monte Carlo Rally, outmaneuvering heavier machinery across icy mountain passes with lightweight agility rather than brute off-road hardware.

— New Atlas, New Atlas, 9 Oct. 2026
The characters' abilities are built around outmaneuvering, not outgunning.

— Brian Mazique, Forbes.com, 15 Aug. 2026

Definition of outmaneuvering

Browse Nearby Words

overreaches

overreaching

overrefined

See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

Style

“Overreaching.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/overreaching. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.

Copy Citation

Synonyms of overreaching

verb

Example Sentences

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

milieu

Popular in Grammar & Usage

How to Use 'Who' vs. 'Whom'

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

'Affect' vs. 'Effect'

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?

Popular in Wordplay

The Longest Long Words List

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World

Why do we 'bury the lede?'

'Za' and 9 Other Words to Help You Win at SCRABBLE

Popular

How to Use 'Who' vs. 'Whom'

The Longest Long Words List

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

Games & Quizzes