🎭 To exaggerate 🔁 To repeat too much

to overtell

7.7

To tell a story too often or with too many details so it becomes boring

verb
/oʊvərˈtɛl/

: repetir

If you overtell the joke, it loses its humor and becomes boring.

Examples

She tends to overtell every detail of her vacation.
She realized she might overtell her experiences when her friends stopped listening.
He tends to overtell stories, repeating the same details.
Don't overtell your stories!
If you overtell the joke, it loses its humor and becomes boring.
He tends to overtell stories, repeating the same details.
She realized she might overtell her experiences when her friends stopped listening.

Synonyms

to overexplain

vsto overtell

6.0

To give more explanation than needed and make things confusing or boring

repeats points often and adds excessive detail making it tedious

to overexpand

vsto overtell

5.3

To make writing or an answer longer than necessary

repeats content and focuses on tedious repeated detail

to overspeak

vsto overtell

7.5

To talk too much and say things you should not say

repeats points or gives excessive detail rather than mere talkativeness

to overlard

vsto overtell

9.9

To put too many details or ingredients into something so it becomes bad

focuses on repeating or giving excessive detail rather than ornamenting content

Antonyms

to summarize

90 3.0

Present the main points of a text in a short, clear way

to condense

21 4.2

Make something shorter by removing unimportant details

How Repetitive

to drone on

Informal

10 6.0

to overtell

7.7

to repeat

∞ 1.0

to mention

∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

overtell infinitive

overtelling present participle

overtells third person singular

overtold past

overtold past participle

Morphology

overtell = tell (transparent) = over + tell

The productive prefix 'over-' meaning 'excessive' combines with 'tell' to give 'to tell excessively' (too often or with too much detail), which learners can infer from known components.

Etymology

Overtell comes from the parts over- 'too much' and tell 'say', the same idea as in overdo. Imagine someone repeating a story with every small detail until listeners get bored. So, to overtell is to tell something too often or with too much detail, making it tiring or boring.