Definition of "overbook" []

• To take reservations for (an airline flight, for example) beyond the capacity for accommodation. (verb-transitive)
• To take reservations beyond the capacity for accommodation: a restaurant that regularly overbooks for dinner. (verb-intransitive)

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.

• "The result is doctors drastically overbook, spend very little time with a patient, and more often than not don't correctly treat the problem."
• "Prisons overbook for the same reason holiday camps do: to compensate for the inevitable number of detainees who fail to show up for confirmed reservations for one reason or another, or those who escape."
• "(Boeing's production dropped more because of a strike in 2008.) "In recent years, we could have ramped up far more dramatically, but we preferred to overbook," Mr. Enders said."