overgeneralization: Meaning and Definition of

o•ver•gen•er•al•i•za•tion

1. the act or process of overgeneralizing.
2. the result of overgeneralizing.
3. (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.