Home › Words › O › overshortenovershorten/ˌəʊ.vəˈʃɔː.tən/overshorten means to shorten too much; make excessively or inappropriately short.overshorten is pronounced /ˌəʊ.vəˈʃɔː.tən/.EtymologyFrom over- + shorten.verbTo shorten too much; make excessively or inappropriately short.e.g.“This plant has only a certain capacity for daylight, and to overshorten the nights would injure it.” — 1936, Harold Vincent Marrot, editor, The Life and Letters of John Galsworthy, 2nd revised edition, Heinemann, page 696:Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).