overcrowded

adjective

over·​crowd·​ed ˌō-vər-ˈkrau̇-dəd 

: crowded or filled to excess : having too many people or things

overcrowded streets/cities/classrooms

living in overcrowded conditions

… having an overcrowded space can make it hard for buyers to … visualize their own belongings in the space, said Los Angeles-based designer Francesca Grace.

—Jennifer Tzeses

… some 5 million workers commute for up to three hours on trains so overcrowded that there seem to be as many passengers hanging on to the outside of the carriages as there are inside.

—Ismail Merchant

Examples of overcrowded in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Students who learn in overcrowded classrooms, with parents who can’t help them with homework, quickly fall behind. — Ryan Lenora Brown, Christian Science Monitor, 12 Aug. 2026

In overcrowded, understaffed facilities, residents were too often neglected and stripped of privacy, autonomy, or any meaningful connection to their communities. — Barbara Merrill, Time, 11 Aug. 2026

In the early days of the war, the jail became so overcrowded with Ukrainian prisoners that many inmates had to sleep in shifts, or even take turns standing up. — Joshua Yaffa, New Yorker, 10 Aug. 2026

The dogs were kept on heavy chains or in overcrowded crates and makeshift pens surrounded by waste, prosecutors said. — Cbs News Atlanta Digital Team, CBS News, 10 Aug. 2026

Word History

Etymology

from past participle of overcrowd

First Known Use

1725, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for overcrowded

• clouded
• crowded
• shrouded
• enshrouded
• unclouded
• uncrowded