English edit

Etymology edit

over- +‎ construct

Verb edit

overconstruct (third-person singular simple present overconstructs, present participle overconstructing, simple past and past participle overconstructed)

  1. (transitive) To place too great a construction upon; to exaggerate.
    • 1996, Veit Erlmann, Nightsong: Performance, Power, and Practice in South Africa, page 119:
      The first is a caveat against the tendency to overconstruct a link between patterns of urban dwelling and cultural practices in South Africa.
    • 2012, Fritz Zwicky, Morphological Astronomy, page 26:
      Very often theorists are prone to overconstruct facts, that is to endow them with greater meaning than is warranted by the observations.

Related terms edit