exaggerate
pronunciation
How to pronounce exaggerate in British English:
UK [ɪɡˈzædʒəreɪt]
How to pronounce exaggerate in American English:
US [ɪɡˈzædʒəreɪt]
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- Verb:
- to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth
- do something to an excessive degree
Word Origin
- exaggerate
- exaggerate: [16] Something that is exaggerated is literally ‘piled up’ out of all due proportion; indeed that is what it originally meant in English: ‘With their flipping and flapping up and down in the dirt they exaggerate a mountain of mire’, Philip Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses 1583. It was not really until the 17th century that the current sense ‘overemphasize’ came to the fore, although it was already present in the word’s Latin original. This was exaggerāre, a compound formed from the intensive prefix exand aggerāre ‘pile up’ (a derivative of agger ‘heap’).
- exaggerate (v.)
- 1530s, "to pile up, accumulate," from Latin exaggeratus, past participle of exaggerare "heighten, amplify, magnify," literally "to heap, pile, load, fill," from ex- "thoroughly" (see ex-) + aggerare "heap up, accumulate," figuratively "amplify, magnify," from agger (genitive aggeris) "heap," from aggerere "bring together, carry toward," from assimilated form of ad- "to, toward" (see ad-) + gerere "carry" (see gest). Sense of "overstate" first recorded in English 1560s. Related: Exaggerated; exaggerating.
Example
- 1. Serious thinkers sometimes exaggerate the clout of the few .
- 2. It is certainly possible to exaggerate mizoguchi 's foreignness .
- 3. And u. s. politicians often exaggerate what confrontation might achieve .
- 4. I don 't exaggerate when I say that my voice was drowned out by cheers .
- 5. One view is that official figures grossly exaggerate their activity .