English

Verb

overbuild ‎(third-person singular simple present overbuilds, present participle overbuilding, simple past and past participle overbuilt)

1. (transitive) To perform excessive construction on a building or in an area.
2. (transitive) To build over or on top of another structure.

   The architect wanted to overbuild the restaurant on top of an office.

3. (transitive) To build with excessive size or elaboration.
4. (intransitive) To construct more buildings than necessary in an area.
   • Philip Larkin on John Betjeman

     How much more interesting & worth writing about Betjeman's subjects are than most other modern poets, I mean, whether so-and-so achieves some metaphysical inner unity is not really so interesting to us as the overbuilding of rural Middlesex.

Antonyms

• underbuild

Derived terms

• overbuilder

Translations