Highly
Overly
Overly adverb - Beyond a normal or acceptable limit.
Usage example: there's no need to be overly careful about the rough draft, since we'll polish it afterwards
Mutual synonyms
Related pairs
Both words in one sentence
- Home on the Range is highly panned for being overly kiddish even for a Disney film.
Source: Lighter And Softer / Film - She eventually became highly neurotic, scarily obsessed with cleanliness, overly shrill and competitive (to the point where she was in competition with herself).
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Overly Long Gag: Four full pages of nothing but the word "meow." Parking Payback: The Nimrogs, a highly violent species of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, are revealed to have fought themselves into extinction (save one) in a 300-year-old civil war that originally started over a parking space.
Cite this Source
Overly and Highly. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 16, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/highly/overly
Highly & Overly. N.p., 2016. Web. 16 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/highly/overly>.
Overly or Highly. 2016. Accessed August 16, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/highly/overly.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "highly" and "overly" have occurred on timeline