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A word or phrase for wildly overreacting against a legitimate wrongdoing

English Language & Usage Asked by cellardhour on February 26, 2021

I’m not sure if the phrase I’m looking for would be combat related or not, but essentially I’m looking to describe a situation like the following examples:

  1. A drunk man shoves a sober man to get past him, and the sober man reacts by knocking out the drunk man’s teeth.

  2. A wife cheats on her husband, so the husband kills her.

  3. Dissident civilians throw rocks at soldiers, the soldiers shoot the civilians dead with machine guns.

2 Answers

Maybe overkill should suit your purpose

You can say that something is overkill when you think that there is more of it than is necessary or appropriate.

[Collins]

Answered by user405662 on February 26, 2021

Over-reaction

...as in your question is the best answer.

to react to something too strongly : to respond to something with too strong an emotion or with unnecessary or excessive action

-Merriam Webster

and as @Yosem Baskin said in a comment

"Sounds like disproportionate retaliation."

...if you want to get fancy.

Answered by Cascabel on February 26, 2021

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