"oversentence" meaning in English

See oversentence in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: oversentences [present, singular, third-person], oversentencing [participle, present], oversentenced [participle, past], oversentenced [past]
Etymology: From over- + sentence. Etymology templates: {{af|en|over-|sentence}} over- + sentence Head templates: {{en-verb}} oversentence (third-person singular simple present oversentences, present participle oversentencing, simple past and past participle oversentenced)
  1. (transitive) To issue a sentence that is harsher than necessary. Tags: transitive

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "over-",
        "3": "sentence"
      },
      "expansion": "over- + sentence",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From over- + sentence.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "oversentences",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "oversentencing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "oversentenced",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "oversentenced",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "oversentence (third-person singular simple present oversentences, present participle oversentencing, simple past and past participle oversentenced)",
      "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"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms prefixed with over-",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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        {
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          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              240,
              253
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2013 July 29, Maggie Livingstone, “Jeffries to address ‘oversentencing’ in U.S. justice system”, in The Chautauquan Daily:",
          "text": "The United States currently incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau. John C. Jeffries Jr., today’s morning lecturer, will propose ways to combat a prison system that often “oversentences and overpunishes.”",
          "type": "quote"
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              70,
              83
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2016 July 1, 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"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              271,
              283
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2017 July 25, Cory Doctorow, “SLIM: An open, transparent, hand-computable sentencing algorithm”, in Boing Boing:",
          "text": "Machine learning companies are making big bucks selling opaque, secretive sentencing algorithm tools to America's court systems: the vendors of these systems claim that they are too sophisticated to explain, and use that opacity to dismiss critics who say the algorithms oversentence black and poor people.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              82,
              96
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2018 July 14, Diane Dimond, “Second-Look Sentencing”, in Creators:",
          "text": "Let's face it: The U.S. went through an ill-advised orgy-like period of mandatory oversentencing. The odious three-strikes laws gave \"persistent offenders\" — those already found guilty of two or more previous felonies — long and often life sentences for their third offense, even if it was for simply stealing a piece of pizza.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
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          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              54,
              67
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 July 21, Daniel Walters, “Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell finds himself under attack from three fronts”, in The Inlander:",
          "text": "\"It's about decades of an office that overcharges and oversentences but keeps getting worse results,\" Conklin says.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              20,
              32
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 December 8, Anthony Ehlers, “Who is a political prisoner?”, in Chicago Reader:",
          "text": "Judges consistently oversentence people to prove they are “tough on crime,” and do so under the guise that such sentences will deter others.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To issue a sentence that is harsher than necessary."
      ],
      "id": "en-oversentence-en-verb-nvi46uOR",
      "links": [
        [
          "sentence",
          "sentence"
        ],
        [
          "harsh",
          "harsh"
        ],
        [
          "necessary",
          "necessary"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To issue a sentence that is harsher than necessary."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "oversentence"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "over-",
        "3": "sentence"
      },
      "expansion": "over- + sentence",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From over- + sentence.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "oversentences",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "oversentencing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "oversentenced",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "oversentenced",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "oversentence (third-person singular simple present oversentences, present participle oversentencing, simple past and past participle oversentenced)",
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    }
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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        "English lemmas",
        "English terms prefixed with over-",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              240,
              253
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2013 July 29, Maggie Livingstone, “Jeffries to address ‘oversentencing’ in U.S. justice system”, in The Chautauquan Daily:",
          "text": "The United States currently incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau. John C. Jeffries Jr., today’s morning lecturer, will propose ways to combat a prison system that often “oversentences and overpunishes.”",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              70,
              83
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2016 July 1, 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"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              271,
              283
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2017 July 25, Cory Doctorow, “SLIM: An open, transparent, hand-computable sentencing algorithm”, in Boing Boing:",
          "text": "Machine learning companies are making big bucks selling opaque, secretive sentencing algorithm tools to America's court systems: the vendors of these systems claim that they are too sophisticated to explain, and use that opacity to dismiss critics who say the algorithms oversentence black and poor people.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              82,
              96
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2018 July 14, Diane Dimond, “Second-Look Sentencing”, in Creators:",
          "text": "Let's face it: The U.S. went through an ill-advised orgy-like period of mandatory oversentencing. The odious three-strikes laws gave \"persistent offenders\" — those already found guilty of two or more previous felonies — long and often life sentences for their third offense, even if it was for simply stealing a piece of pizza.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              54,
              67
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 July 21, Daniel Walters, “Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell finds himself under attack from three fronts”, in The Inlander:",
          "text": "\"It's about decades of an office that overcharges and oversentences but keeps getting worse results,\" Conklin says.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              20,
              32
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2023 December 8, Anthony Ehlers, “Who is a political prisoner?”, in Chicago Reader:",
          "text": "Judges consistently oversentence people to prove they are “tough on crime,” and do so under the guise that such sentences will deter others.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To issue a sentence that is harsher than necessary."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sentence",
          "sentence"
        ],
        [
          "harsh",
          "harsh"
        ],
        [
          "necessary",
          "necessary"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive) To issue a sentence that is harsher than necessary."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "oversentence"
}

Download raw JSONL data for oversentence meaning in English (3.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (aeaf2a1 and fb63907). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.