overthink

verb — 3 senses

overthink

verb

Etymology From over- + think.

1

To think or analyze too much.

  • Don't overthink the problem. It's not that difficult.
  • Mr. Trump “thinks about it as just like whatever entertains him, but as he’s doing that, he’s bringing people together,’” Mr. Ceraso said in a phone interview on Sunday before the event. Democrats, he added, should “stop trying to overthink it.”2026 June 14, Bayliss Wagner, “Trump’s U.F.C. Event Comes as Backing of Young Men, Once a Strength, Wanes”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
2

Rare To think too highly (of); overestimate

  • So to think of self as not to overthink — to think of yourself with sober, moral judgment.1859, Henry Ward Beecher, Sermons, page 25:
Derived terms
overthinker

overthink

verb

Etymology From Middle English *overthenken, *overthenchen (compare Middle English overthinken (“to grieve; have regrets; be sorry; be anxious”)), from Old English oferþenċan (“to think over; consider”), equivalent to over- + think.

1

Archaic To think about; think over

  • But when I dred that wou'd not work, I overthought me of a Wile How I might at my leisure lurk, My graceless Guardain to beguile.1695, J.D. Albany, The Banishment of poverty:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.