Definition of "overkill" []

• Destructive nuclear capacity exceeding the amount needed to destroy an enemy. (noun)
• Excessive killing. (noun)
• An excess of what is necessary or appropriate for a particular end: "government overkill in dealing with dissent” ( Jesse Unruh). (noun)
• To destroy (an enemy or enemy target) with more nuclear force than necessary. (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.

• "Like Marcos, Mrs. Arroyo ran a campaign in 2004 to which the label overkill equally applies."
• "But critical overkill is a very popular approach still to writing about books."
• "Right well what I mean by it being overkill is that I don't think data recovery is a good enough reason, in that there are easier ways of recovering data without partitioning."