Meanings
verb
- participlepastsimple past and past participle of overengineer
adjectiveoverengineered (comparative more overengineered, superlative most overengineered)
comparative more overengineered · superlative most overengineered
- Made more complicated than necessary, often intentionally; as, especially
- Made more complicated than necessary, often intentionally; as, especially:
- Designed for greater strength or other greater capability than is reasonably warranted by the principal purpose of the object, in anticipation of heavier duty or longer duty cycles than the standard use cases would predict.
They were ruled out as over-engineered and too expensive for mass production, and lost out to Class 141 and '142' railbuses, and then Class 150s.
2023 April 5, “£35,000 needed to save a Class 317 and create rebuilt '210' DMU”, in RAIL, number 980, page 8
Cite this entry
APA
overengineered. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/overengineered
MLA
“overengineered.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/overengineered. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “overengineered,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/overengineered.
Source: overengineered on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.