overstate

present singular third person overstates · participle present overstating · participle past overstated · past overstated

1. transitiveTo state or claim too much.

   Synonyms: overapproximate, overreckon, overapproximate, overestimate, overhold, overrate, overreckon, overthink · Antonyms: underestimate, understate, misunderestimate, sell short, underapproximate, underestimate, underguess, underjudge

2. transitiveTo exaggerate; to state or claim to a greater degree than reality.

   He was suggested not to overstate at the interview.

   4 more examples

   I think it is overstating matters to say that an hour online is spending all night on the computer.

   In a closely reasoned article in The Guardian, Mr. D. L. Munby, Oxford University's Reader in the Economics and Organisation of Transport, has taken Dr. Beeching to task for overstating his case for withdrawing stopping train services as money-losers.

   1963 July, “News and Comment: Dr. Beeching's overstatement”, in Modern Railways, page 3

   Career diplomat Conrad Tribble said on Twitter that multiculturalism “is one of our greatest strengths as a country, and I go to that well often as an American diplomat. It’s hard to overstate the global soft power impact of America’s cultural diversity.”

   2021 January 19, Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood and Nicole Gaouette, “Pompeo attacks multiculturalism, saying it is ‘not who America is’”, in CNN

   A Nobel prize-winning US biologist, who has been widely quoted describing a “smoking gun” to support the thesis that Covid-19 was genetically modified and escaped from a Wuhan lab, has said he overstated the case.

   2021 June 9, Peter Beaumont, “Leading biologist dampens his ‘smoking gun’ Covid lab leak theory”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: exaggerate, hyperbolize, overdo, big up, cut it fat, exaggerate, hyperbolize, overcharge · Antonyms: deprecate, underdo, understate