Overconnected

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Having far more links, ties, or relationships than is useful or healthy, as in a network or system that has become overly interlinked
2. Describing something with an excessive number of connections, so that its parts become tangled and hard to manage
3. Characterized by too many interlinks or associations, leaving a structure or network crowded and overly complicated

Etymology: "Overconnected" is formed from the prefix "over-", meaning excessively or too much, attached to "connected," the past participle of "connect." Taken together, it describes something linked to too many others, or linked so tightly that the links cause trouble. The prefix does most of the work here. "Over-" has been productive in English for centuries, allowing speakers to turn almost any verb or adjective into a statement of excess, so "overconnected" joins a long family of similar coinages such as "overcrowded" and "overpriced." The base word itself comes from the Latin "connectere," meaning to bind together, which is also the source of the English "connect" and of the older sense of "connexion" as a binding or joining.