Definition of "overgraze" [overgraze]

• To permit animals to graze (vegetational cover) excessively, to the detriment of the vegetation. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "One of the key features of digital commons - like free software or science - is that there is no tragedy in the classical sense: it is impossible for users to "overgraze" a digital commons in the way they can a physical one."
• "Once this grass had dominated the landscape the way the sage did now, until early cattlemen had allowed their cattle to overgraze it."
• "The prey then overgraze, taking food and habitat from other species and lowering the ecosystem's biodiversity."