/oh'veuhr jen'euhr euh leuh zay"sheuhn/ , n.
1. the act or process of overgeneralizing.
2. the result of overgeneralizing.
3. Ling. (in language acquisition) the process of extending the application of a rule to items that are excluded from it in the language norm, as when a child uses the regular past tense verb ending -ed of forms like I walked to produce forms like * I goed or * I rided.
[ 1945-50; OVER- + GENERALIZATION ]