How to Use overstate in a Sentence

overstate

verb
  • It would be overstating the case to say that it was a matter of life or death.
  • But the White House is keen not to overstate any change.
    Meredith Oyen, The Conversation, 24 May 2022
  • The weirdness of McCarthy’s style is hard to overstate.
    Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 5 Dec. 2022
  • Nike’s sway in elite track and road running is hard to overstate.
    oregonlive, 5 Oct. 2019
  • The human toll of the opioid crisis is hard to overstate.
    Sam Whitehead, CNN, 17 Mar. 2023
  • But in truth, both sides overstate the impact this case is likely to have on the law or on the ground.
    Simon Lazarus, The New Republic, 2 Oct. 2023
  • The film’s title rather overstates the Frankenstein of it all.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 7 Feb. 2024
  • In the past, IPCC scientists have bent over backward to be calm and not to overstate the case.
    Naomi Oreskes, Scientific American, 18 Oct. 2021
  • Steven Weinberg’s stature in physics would be hard to overstate.
    BostonGlobe.com, 27 July 2021
  • Much of the skepticism starts at the top, with a voice whose power is hard to overstate.
    Craig Welch, National Geographic, 27 Aug. 2020
  • This elongates the neck and jawline and overstates the power of surgery.
    Jolene Edgar, Allure, 1 Dec. 2023
  • There is no way to overstate how the Supreme Court has changed the political mood.
    Dan Balz, Anchorage Daily News, 8 Apr. 2023
  • But the importance of the 49ers’ first-round bye cannot be overstated.
    Benjamin Hoffman, New York Times, 10 Jan. 2020
  • The good news is that the summer slide is often overstated.
    Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 10 July 2023
  • The shock and hurt in Canada, the largest U.S. trading partner and a close ally, was hard to overstate.
    Author: Anne Gearan, Amanda Coletta, Anchorage Daily News, 24 Feb. 2021
  • But the authors probably overstate the effect of IRS staffing on the wealthy.
    The Editorial Board, WSJ, 3 May 2021
  • There’s no way to overstate Mr. Salazar’s bad judgment.
    Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 6 Feb. 2022
  • The level of nationwide anger at the parties is hard to overstate.
    Alexander Smith, NBC News, 6 June 2022
  • Hard to overstate how valuable a player like that can be.
    Joel A. Erickson, The Indianapolis Star, 31 Dec. 2021
  • The consequences of all these forces combined are hard to overstate.
    Andrew McNicol, CNN, 7 Apr. 2023
  • It can’t be overstated how Joe has transformed the landscape of our corner of the state.
    Josh Will, Cincinnati.com, 10 Jan. 2020
  • The polls were correct that Joe Biden would win, but 93 percent of them overstated his lead.
    Allison Parshall, Scientific American, 31 Oct. 2024
  • There is truth in this argument, but Gordis overstates his case.
    Ethan Bronner, The New York Review of Books, 12 Mar. 2020
  • The point, though, is that its role is often overstated, at least publicly.
    The Arizona Republic, 19 Apr. 2023
  • But even if Dobbs does not mark the moment when the court eliminates a right to choose, the damage this case could do to Roe is hard to overstate.
    Mary Ziegler, CNN, 17 May 2021
  • The subtext is that because none of the things happened, the threat of climate change as a whole is clearly overstated.
    WIRED, 10 Mar. 2023
  • The excitement that Abiy’s appointment brought to the country is hard to overstate.
    Ann Neumann, Harper’s Magazine , 6 Jan. 2023
  • Hard to overstate the importance of this game for Oregon State.
    oregonlive, 28 Aug. 2022
  • But these assumptions—both about what is possible through force of arms and the degree to which the Trump White House will back it—are dangerously overstated.
    Shalom Lipner, Foreign Affairs, 25 Nov. 2024
  • Beauty had overstated its revenue, leading investors to sell off shares in the company.
    Sheryl Estrada, Fortune, 21 Nov. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'overstate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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