overage

adjective over·age \ ˌō-vər-ˈāj \

variants: or less commonly overaged play \ˌō-vər-ˈājd\

Updated on: 25 Mar 2018

Definition of overage

1 : too old to be useful

2 : older than is normal for one's position, function, or grade

See overage defined for English-language learners

See overage defined for kids

Examples of overage in a Sentence

The college has many overage students.
The players were banned from the league for being overage.

Recent Examples of overage from the Web

In January 2015, the team paid a tick more than $8 million to sign him, plus another $8 million in overage penalties for exceeding its international spending limits.

— nick piecoro, azcentral, "Arizona Diamondbacks’ Yoan Lopez is a prospect again," 16 Mar. 2018
But in New Orleans, overage students are incredibly common.

— the hechinger report, NOLA.com, "About 40 percent of New Orleans high school students are held back at least 1 grade," 8 Jan. 2018
Other squads that are up against the cap—the Giants, Red Sox, and Nationals, to name a few—are leery of the financial hit that the overage tax will deliver.

— jon tayler, SI.com, "Dodgers' Mega Trade Is More About 2018 Offseason Than Reacquiring Matt Kemp," 16 Dec. 2017
During and after Hurricane Irma, all South Florida cell providers also waived data, talk and text overage charges for customers.

— nancy dahlberg, miamiherald, "The state of internet outages: What we know about what we don’t know," 22 Sep. 2017
Expect them to recommend buying 15 or 20 percent overage to allow for waste in the cutting and fitting.

— courtney ortega, star-telegram, "Great garden-path options to ponder," 1 Nov. 2017
This year, the second overage player to be traded was Evan Weinger.

— samantha meese, OregonLive.com, "On the Portland Winterhawks: Back to the Future," 11 Oct. 2017
Customers must pay overage fees of $10 for each additional 50GB, up to a maximum of $200 a month.

— jon brodkin, Ars Technica, "AT&T’s wireless home Internet, with 160GB cap, is now in 18 states," 28 Sep. 2017
Sprint joined other companies to waive text, call and data overage fees for its services, including Sprint, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile, through Friday.

— marco santana, OrlandoSentinel.com, "Hurricane Irma sends cable, cellular firms scrambling to restore service," 13 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'overage.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of overage

²over + age

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

See Words from the same year

overage

noun over·age \ ˈō-və-rij , ˈōv-rij \

Definition of overage

: surplus, excess

See overage defined for English-language learners

Examples of overage in a Sentence

They paid me back the overage.
She kept track of the cost overages.

Recent Examples of overage from the Web

About 12 million Americans buy individual overage on the exchanges, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

— Washington Post, "It will be a tale of 2 countries as open enrollment begins," 30 Oct. 2017
Cloudflare saved me from an expensive overage payment.

— lee hutchinson, Ars Technica, "How to hurricane-proof a Web server," 7 Sep. 2017
When a slew of old bills arrived at the County Council office in recent months, concerns about consistent budget overages prompted the board to launch an investigative committee to determine what practices led to the overspending.

— craig lyons, Post-Tribune, "'I can't let them down': New Lake County sheriff settles into role," 29 Sep. 2017
Regardless of what caused an overage, Comcast customer service reps often tell customers who complain about high data readings that someone else might be using their network, and Cox appears to be heading down the same path.

— jon brodkin, Ars Technica, "Cox starts charging data cap overage fees in California," 27 Sep. 2017
It was discovered in March, and MSU reduced practice by two hours the week of March 28-April 3. * Volleyball: Players received a $60 total overage for meals during the 2015-16 season in conjunction with home matches.

— chris solari, Detroit Free Press, "Draymond Green broke NCAA rule with FaceTime call to MSU's Miles Bridges," 15 Sep. 2017
The system, without any tweaking, would happily tally overages and charge accordingly.

— daniel gross, Slate Magazine, "Turn Off the Price-Gouging Machine," 10 Sep. 2017
Allen now tries to stay as close to the allotted schedule as possible, in part because his financing agreements stipulate that any budget overage come out of his own fee for writing and directing.

— christopher orr, The Atlantic, "The Remarkable Laziness of Woody Allen," 7 Sep. 2017
The state is asking the court to force CHI Franciscan to pay back the overages, pay civil penalties and court costs, and rescind both agreements with the medical providers.

— kate martin, The Seattle Times, "CHI Franciscan, two medical firms accused of ‘price-fixing agreement’ by Washington attorney general," 1 Sep. 2017