overestimate

over- +‎ estimate

• (verb) IPA^(key): /ˌəʊvəɹˈɛstɪmeɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (noun) IPA^(key): /ˌəʊvəɹˈɛstɪmət/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

overestimate (third-person singular simple present overestimates, present participle overestimating, simple past and past participle overestimated)

1. To judge or calculate too highly.

   I overestimated the number of attendees, and bought far too much food for the party.

   • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎, page 15:

     One must be especially careful when using Google to determine frequency as there is a very real risk of fantastically overestimating the frequency and subsequent importance of a term.

• (antonym(s) of “to judge too highly”): underestimate

overestimate (plural overestimates)

1. An estimate that is too high.
   • 2013, Peter Karl Kresl, Jaime Sobrino, Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Urban Economies:

     The employment projection for the metropolitan area for 1985 was an overestimate by about 12 percent.