overbuiltadj.
/ˌəʊvəˈbɪlt/, U.S. /ˌoʊvərˈbɪlt/ 1. Built too much upon; having too many buildings.
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1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World I. 554 Prouided alwaies, that a mans land be not ouer-built.
1801 S. J. Pratt Harvest-home (1805) III. 440 Thou [sc. Bath] art so Londoniz'd, So over-built and over-siz'd, That my old friend I scarcely knew.
1864 Webster's Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang. Overbuilt, built too much; having too many buildings; as an overbuilt part of a town.
1885 M. Pattison Mem. I. 14 Oxford, not then overbuilt and slummy, looked..charming.
1927 Dict. National Biogr. 1912–21 555/1 Warre also started the Eton mission at Hackney Wick, too far off and overbuilt, but he let G. F. Bodley set there one of the most beautiful of London churches.
1977 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 17 Sept. 54/2 Is little New Orleans overbuilt? Perhaps not. By early summer the Hilton had already booked one million room-nights.
1991 N.Y. Mag. 11 Mar. 85/1 Zoning incentives, which were intended to lure office-building development from the overbuilt East Side.
2. Built too large or elaborately. Also figurative.
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1744 W. Welchman Let. 12 Sept. in A. P. Jenkins Corr. T. Secker (1991) 118 Great and constant charges of repairing a large overbuilt old house.
1909 Daily Chron. 17 July 3/2 This is an enjoyable book... It has faults of plot—it is over-built—and of character-drawing.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, December 2004; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1601