go overboard

Idioms and Phrases

Show excessive enthusiasm, act in an excessive way. For example, It's easy to go overboard with a new stock offering , or She really went overboard, hiring the most expensive caterer . [Mid-1900s]

Example Sentences

“We go overboard because we haven’t learned how to temperate our appetite for memory.”

From Slate

“It's hard not to go overboard with admiration for a nonagenarian who remains so unaffected by her fame on the one hand,” wrote one, “and some of the awful things life has thrown at her on the other.”

From BBC

Redick seemed pleased he didn’t go overboard and made sure his assistants had some say.

From Los Angeles Times

I just wanted everything to be perfect and structured, because most of the magazines and the models, they have very symmetrical faces, and the lips needed to be a certain way, but for me, I kind of started to go overboard.”

From Los Angeles Times

“I go overboard,” she said in a video call.

From New York Times

Related Words

• exaggerate
• overestimate
• overplay
• overrate
• overreach
• overstate
• overuse
• overvalue