to overgraze
1
5.6
- verb
- /ˌoʊvərˈɡreɪz/
- Specialized
:
sobrepastorear
- If the cattle overgraze the pasture, the grass will not have enough time to recover.
- overgrazing by cattle
- the land was overgrazed
Examples
-
Cattle tend to overgraze it in preference to other grass species.
Academic text (1994) -
It prevents livestock from overgrazing lush new growth while leaving tall clumps of old growth.
Academic text (1994) -
Another hundred head would only further overgraze the pasture, which we must leave soon anyway.
Fiction book (1990) -
If any one family overgrazes its own section, only that family loses.
Academic text (2002) -
So they can keep on overgrazing with as many cattle and sheep as they always have without the American public noticing.
-
The root of the problem was overgrazing on the 80 percent of the land that was unsuitable for cultivation.
Academic text (1990) -
In the coming months, I will begin to explore how overgrazing by cattle, goats, and sheep influences starling social behavior.
Academic text (2009) -
By the later 1500s, lands were severely overgrazed, and gully erosion from trampling by livestock was considerable.
Academic text (1992) -
Thirty-three percent of natural grasslands are overgrazed (MOA 2007), although grassland conservation programs have been initiated in recent years.
Academic text (2009) -
Private ranchers had used—and in some cases overgrazed—the same land around the turn of the century, before regulation of grazing on open range in the West.
Academic text (1995)
Synonyms
1
7.4
Use things from nature like fish or trees so much that they disappear
To eat too many plants in an area and harm the land
How Damaging
- Specialized
1
5.6
35
2.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Overgraze comes from the prefix over- meaning 'too much' and the verb graze meaning 'to eat grass', so it describes animals eating so much grass that the land is damaged and cannot recover. Think of sheep eating a hillside until it is bare to remember the meaning.