overreliance

noun

over·​re·​li·​ance ˌō-vər-ri-ˈlī-ən(t)s 

: the act or state of relying on something or someone too much : excessive reliance

One of my top priorities next year is to have an energy policy that begins to address all facets of our overreliance on fossil fuels.

—Barack Obama

I shy away from prescribing sleeping pills … to avoid overreliance on them.

—Andrew Weil

Examples of overreliance in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

An overreliance on tools weakens our civilization (and saps the film’s dramatic thrills). —Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2026

Faced with this new reality, Latin American governments are quietly pursuing strategies to hedge against overreliance on Washington. —Oliver Stuenkel, Time, 9 Jan. 2026

That change was made to soften the law’s overreliance on drug weight in assessing punishment in federal drug trafficking cases. —Kevin Krause, Dallas Morning News, 6 Jan. 2026

Operating within a patchwork of policies without coordinated support, teachers and students nationwide are left to navigate the AI gray area on their own, increasing the risk of misuse, overreliance, and inequitable access to technology. —Sophia Romee, Fortune, 18 Dec. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1833, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for overreliance

• appliance
• compliance
• defiance
• reliance
• geoscience
• neuroscience
• noncompliance
• pseudoscience
• science