It might be over used by us. But, when I have to explain the term, I get lots of questions:
1) How is that different from Off-roading?
2) Isn't that 4-Wheeling, or rock crawling?
3) I couldn't find that word is a Dictionary, did you make it up?
Here you go. My history on this and opinion.
1) in the early 70's we would throw our gear into our vehicles, spend the weekend driving/exploring the desert or the mountains and say "we were off roading last weekend".
2) If we did anything difficult it was 4-wheeling. In the early 90's we started "Rock Crawling" and developed specialty rig's to do it. Rock Crawling became a very technical sport. In the beginning it could take us hours to drive 1/4 mile. Working each vehicle over the obstacle one at a time. Then there was "Sand Duning", Mud Bogging", Hill Climbing".
3) Over the years, I would see an article in an off road magazine talking about doing an "Overland Trip" or "Expedition" across Africa, Siberia, Australia. One of my first 4wd's was a "Willy's Overland"
In my business, one of the first things you learn is, terminology is the bane of your existence. Different manufactures call the same thing different names. For example swaybar, anti rollbar, stabilizer bar are the same thing. But, a "sway bar doesn't control sway, a Panhard rod (Track Locating Bar) does. Why do people call it a sway bar then? Whats an "Air Bag"? The thing you fill with air found on your suspension or the thing that hit's you in the face during a crash?
As long as I understand what their talking about I don't care what they name it. It does make it difficult holding a conversation with someone where they use a wrong name or term. Ive gotten to the point where I start asking specific questions, just so I know were talking about the same thing.
People who don't know what something is called and or where the name/term came from, want the knowledge to avoid confusion. Unfortunately when several names mean the same thing, we have more confusion (Chaos).
Scott