"overpolice" meaning in English

See overpolice in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: overpolices [present, singular, third-person], overpolicing [participle, present], overpoliced [participle, past], overpoliced [past]
Etymology: From over- + police. Etymology templates: {{af|en|over-|police}} over- + police Head templates: {{en-verb}} overpolice (third-person singular simple present overpolices, present participle overpolicing, simple past and past participle overpoliced)
  1. (transitive) To police too much, as by patrolling a neighborhood excessively or meting out a punishment incommensurate to the severity of a crime. Tags: transitive Categories (topical): Law enforcement

Inflected forms

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "underpolice"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "over-",
        "3": "police"
      },
      "expansion": "over- + police",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From over- + police.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "overpolices",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "overpolicing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "overpoliced",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "overpoliced",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "overpolice (third-person singular simple present overpolices, present participle overpolicing, simple past and past participle overpoliced)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms prefixed with over-",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Law enforcement",
          "orig": "en:Law enforcement",
          "parents": [
            "Crime prevention",
            "Emergency services",
            "Law",
            "Crime",
            "Public safety",
            "Justice",
            "Criminal law",
            "Society",
            "Public administration",
            "Security",
            "All topics",
            "Government",
            "Fundamental",
            "Politics"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003 February 15, “The Fundamental Right to March”, in The New York Times:",
          "text": "First, many veterans of protest marches believe that the police overpolice these events. Second, why are the police still willing to protect a St. Patrick's Day Parade if security concerns and costs are suddenly so important?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 January 7, Cory Doctorow, “White House plan to use data to shrink prison populations could be a racist dumpster fire”, in Boing Boing:",
          "text": "Black people in America fit that description of being overpoliced and oversentenced.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 August 5, Victoria M. Massie, “Cops don’t need to hand out ice cream. They need to end racist policing practices.”, in Vox:",
          "text": "Part of the difference in attitudes comes from African Americans’ experiences within a racially biased criminal justice system that overpolices black and brown neighborhoods and rarely holds officers accountable for reported mistreatment, excessive force, or even killing African Americans.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 July 19, Brianna Scott, Ailsa Chang, Jeanette Woods, “How AI could perpetuate racism, sexism and other biases in society”, in NPR:",
          "text": "So if you live in a zip code that has been overpoliced historically, you are going to have overarresting. And we know that the overpolicing and the overarresting happens in Black and Latino communities. That's just a fact.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To police too much, as by patrolling a neighborhood excessively or meting out a punishment incommensurate to the severity of a crime."
      ],
      "id": "en-overpolice-en-verb-EPuIAr83",
      "links": [
        [
          "police",
          "police"
        ],
        [
          "patrol",
          "patrol"
        ],
        [
          "neighborhood",
          "neighborhood"
        ],
        [
          "meting out",
          "mete out"
        ],
        [
          "punishment",
          "punishment"
        ],
        [
          "incommensurate",
          "incommensurate"
        ],
        [
          "severity",
          "severity"
        ],
        [
          "crime",
          "crime"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To police too much, as by patrolling a neighborhood excessively or meting out a punishment incommensurate to the severity of a crime."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "overpolice"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "underpolice"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "over-",
        "3": "police"
      },
      "expansion": "over- + police",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From over- + police.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "overpolices",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "overpolicing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "overpoliced",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "overpoliced",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "overpolice (third-person singular simple present overpolices, present participle overpolicing, simple past and past participle overpoliced)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English terms prefixed with over-",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Law enforcement"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003 February 15, “The Fundamental Right to March”, in The New York Times:",
          "text": "First, many veterans of protest marches believe that the police overpolice these events. Second, why are the police still willing to protect a St. Patrick's Day Parade if security concerns and costs are suddenly so important?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 January 7, Cory Doctorow, “White House plan to use data to shrink prison populations could be a racist dumpster fire”, in Boing Boing:",
          "text": "Black people in America fit that description of being overpoliced and oversentenced.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 August 5, Victoria M. Massie, “Cops don’t need to hand out ice cream. They need to end racist policing practices.”, in Vox:",
          "text": "Part of the difference in attitudes comes from African Americans’ experiences within a racially biased criminal justice system that overpolices black and brown neighborhoods and rarely holds officers accountable for reported mistreatment, excessive force, or even killing African Americans.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 July 19, Brianna Scott, Ailsa Chang, Jeanette Woods, “How AI could perpetuate racism, sexism and other biases in society”, in NPR:",
          "text": "So if you live in a zip code that has been overpoliced historically, you are going to have overarresting. And we know that the overpolicing and the overarresting happens in Black and Latino communities. That's just a fact.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To police too much, as by patrolling a neighborhood excessively or meting out a punishment incommensurate to the severity of a crime."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "police",
          "police"
        ],
        [
          "patrol",
          "patrol"
        ],
        [
          "neighborhood",
          "neighborhood"
        ],
        [
          "meting out",
          "mete out"
        ],
        [
          "punishment",
          "punishment"
        ],
        [
          "incommensurate",
          "incommensurate"
        ],
        [
          "severity",
          "severity"
        ],
        [
          "crime",
          "crime"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To police too much, as by patrolling a neighborhood excessively or meting out a punishment incommensurate to the severity of a crime."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "overpolice"
}

Download raw JSONL data for overpolice meaning in English (3.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (df33d17 and 4ed51a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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