how to pronounce overkill

/ˈəʊ.və.kɪl/

audio example by a male speaker

audio example by a female speaker

the above transcription of overkill is a detailed (narrow) transcription according to the rules of the International Phonetic Association; you can find a description of each symbol by clicking the phoneme buttons in the secction below.

overkill is pronounced in three syllables

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1.

2.

3. example pitch curve for pronunciation of overkill

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video examples of overkill pronunciation

An example use of overkill in a speech by a native speaker of british english:

“… like overkill but it worked when banu …”

meanings of overkill

noun:

An unnecessary excess of whatever is needed to achieve a goal.
An unnecessary excess of disposal because of too high criteria of inspection.
A destructive capacity that exceeds that needed to destroy an enemy; especially with nuclear weapons.

verb:

To destroy something with more (nuclear) force than is required.
To dispose of too many items because of too high criteria of inspection.
To do something excessive to achieve a goal.

overkill frequency in english - C2+ level of CEFR

the word overkill occurs in english on average 0.7 times per one million words; this frequency warrants it to be in the study list for C2+ level of language mastery according to CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference.

topics overkill can be related to

it is hard to perfectly classify words into specific topics since each word can have many context of its use, but our machine-learning models believe that overkill can be often used in the following areas:

1) business and work;

2) communication, information, and media;