overplayed

1. 1
   adjective

   Performed, broadcast, or repeated so often that audiences have grown weary of it.

   Like a favorite meal eaten every single day until you can't stand the sight of it.

   The track became hopelessly overplayed once every coffee shop started looping it.

   Directors complained that the orchestral theme was overplayed in trailers long before the movie opened.

   Similaroverused, tired, stale, hackneyed, overdone

   Oppositefresh

   Note

   Once the participle settles into a description, it grades like any adjective: more overplayed, most overplayed, the most overplayed song of the summer. Grading is the easiest way to tell it from the verb form. The song was overplayed by the station names an action, while the song is so overplayed names a state, and only the state takes very, so or more.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of overplay.

   The coach overplayed his star athlete and risked a serious injury before the playoffs.

   She had overplayed her advantage in the negotiation and ended up with nothing.

   Note

   One spelling serves both the simple past and the participle: she overplayed the scene, she had overplayed it, the record was overplayed. It carries every meaning of overplay: overacting a role, overreaching in a contest, playing a song to exhaustion, hitting a golf ball past the green. Overacting and overreaching can stand without an object. The song and golf uses always take one, and the song use hardened into the adjective for worn-out tunes.

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