Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of overact
That secret shakes Charlie’s love for his intended, messes with work, affects his performance in bed and prompts him to spiral out, overacting at every step.
—
Mark Kennedy,
Boston Herald,
2 Apr. 2026
Adrien Brody can’t stop overacting in a commercial for TurboTax.
—
Dee-Ann Durbin,
Fortune,
8 Feb. 2026
On-screen, the speech’s prestige can overwhelm its existential subject matter, and the passage tends to get overacted.
—
Shirley Li,
The Atlantic,
15 Dec. 2025
Snook and Lacy, who display such sharp instincts in their best work, seem to have been directed to overact; cameras freeze on their exaggeratedly bewildered or angry or devastated expressions, putting exclamation points at the end of too many scenes.
—
Judy Berman,
Time,
6 Nov. 2025
His presence is fresh, empathetic, often hypnotic, and never overacted.
—
Christian Blauvelt,
IndieWire,
24 Oct. 2025
One could easily be accused of overacting, of doing too much.
—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
20 Feb. 2025
The college student performers from the Hartt School aren’t encouraged to overact during the party scene anymore — no more drunk jokes or pratfalls.
—
Christopher Arnott,
Hartford Courant,
11 Dec. 2024
Mark Kennedy,
Boston Herald,
2 Apr. 2026
Adrien Brody can’t stop overacting in a commercial for TurboTax.
—
Dee-Ann Durbin,
Fortune,
8 Feb. 2026
On-screen, the speech’s prestige can overwhelm its existential subject matter, and the passage tends to get overacted.
—
Shirley Li,
The Atlantic,
15 Dec. 2025
Snook and Lacy, who display such sharp instincts in their best work, seem to have been directed to overact; cameras freeze on their exaggeratedly bewildered or angry or devastated expressions, putting exclamation points at the end of too many scenes.
—
Judy Berman,
Time,
6 Nov. 2025
His presence is fresh, empathetic, often hypnotic, and never overacted.
—
Christian Blauvelt,
IndieWire,
24 Oct. 2025
One could easily be accused of overacting, of doing too much.
—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
20 Feb. 2025
The college student performers from the Hartt School aren’t encouraged to overact during the party scene anymore — no more drunk jokes or pratfalls.
—
Christopher Arnott,
Hartford Courant,
11 Dec. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for overact
Verb
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The scale of the exposure is easy to underplay.
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YouTube as the new film school, YouTube as the new film festival, YouTube as the new music-video breeding ground — is to dramatically underplay it.
Verb
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Campaigners, meanwhile, don’t want to overplay their hands.
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Try to keep him on the back line of defense and overplay the 3-point line to funnel to him.
Verb
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Greenspan was also criticized for enacting policies that contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the recession at the end of the 2000s.
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After the collapse, state legislators enacted a law in 2022 requiring condo associations to have sufficient reserves to cover major repairs.
Verb
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Being faced with an unavoidable conflict or having to work versus connecting (think staying in to do chores or homework versus spending time with friends) is the fast-track to acting out.
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The statement accused Blake of acting out of retaliation for an incident that occurred earlier in the lacrosse season.
Verb
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Those still carry weight, but many have become easier to acquire, finance, or imitate.
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Once the squid gather near the surface, lines fitted with bait are lowered into the water and rapidly jerked up and down to imitate small prey such as shrimp, triggering strikes before the catch is reeled aboard.
Verb
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Today, Margaret would be playacting her own massacre in active shooter drills at school.
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Trixie advises Alma to playact highness to flummox E.B.
Verb
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The pilot will dramatize the trilogy’s opening heist at the Hotel Theresa on 125th, a thirteen-story tower with a striking white façade once known as the Waldorf of Harlem.
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Plot synopsis House of the Dragon attempts to condense and dramatize the conflicting accounts presented in Fire & Blood—stitched together from testimonies and court chronicles—into a single authoritative narrative.
Verb
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There's that fish net aspect in there, the ruffles to mimic the coral, the pearls.
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Scientists agree some types of plastic can mimic fat, in particular in the brain, and that standardized methods are needed to sample and analyze plastic bits in the body.
Cite this Entry
“Overact.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/overact. Accessed 27 Jun. 2026.
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