Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To represent as greater than is actually the case; overstate: exaggerate the size of the enemy force; exaggerated his own role in the episode.
- v. To enlarge or increase to an abnormal degree: thick lenses that exaggerated the size of her eyes.
- v. To make overstatements.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To heap up; accumulate.
- To increase immoderately or extravagantly; make incongruously large or extended; amplify beyond proper bounds.
- To cause to appear immoderately large or important; amplify in representation or apprehension; enlarge beyond truth or reason.
- In the fine arts, to heighten extravagantly or disproportionately in effect or design: as, to exaggerate particular features in a painting or statue. Synonyms To strain, stretch, overcolor, caricature. See list under
aggravate . - To amplify unduly in thought or in description; use exaggeration in speech or writing.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To heap up; to accumulate.
- v. To amplify; to magnify; to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth ; to delineate extravagantly ; to overstate the truth concerning.
WordNet 3.0
- v. to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth
- v. do something to an excessive degree
Etymologies
- Latin exaggerāre, exaggerāt-, to heap up, magnify : ex-, intensive pref.; see ex- + aggerāre, to pile up (from agger, pile, from aggerere, to bring to : ad-, ad- + gerere, to bring).
Examples
“Talking Points Memo, the calls exaggerate Mr. Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, the former member of the Weather Underground, question the candidate's patriotism by accusing him of”
“The online survey, which polled 1,200 people nationwide, found that 75 percent of respondents thought juice labels exaggerate the presence of healthy ingredients in the product, and a majority lacked confidence about a juice's true contents based on what they read on the front label.”
The Huffington Post: POM Sues Minute Maid For Exploiting Health Benefits Of Pomegranate
“What your saying is right but all youth that got to know their on earth is mentally conditioned to think like the stronger influences as a youth and the actions and interaction brought to memory get distorted by lack of earth knowledge, and to exaggerate is to be human”
“EDIT (for the person who thinks I "exaggerate")-- Please see above Wikipedia entry, specifically THIS QUOTE (italics mine):”
“REID: Well, I think that we kind of exaggerate where people sit.”
“You know, we saw how well Bill Clinton did last time, and I think we kind of exaggerate his strength.”
“Indeed it is they who brought it up and discussed it in the book, and it is they, not I, who offered as the most likely explanation that men "exaggerate" and women "minimize" their sexual promiscuity.”
“To be sure, Harper said his government cannot "exaggerate" the degree with which it can control borrowing.”
“Now estimating crowds is at best inexact, but where is the evidence for some conspiracy by the reporter to "exaggerate"?”
“The thought of sabotaging the settings on the T1i to "exaggerate" the differences crossed my mind, but i cant do it in good conscience.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘exaggerate’.
-
Eesily missspellable words
absence, abundance, accessible, accidentally, acclaim, accommodate, accomplish, accordion, accumulate, achievement, acquaintance, across and 420 more...
-
Go to work on an egg
Words which - with a modicum of tolerance in pronunciation - sound like ways of cooking eggs.
exacerbate, exculpate, exclamatory, exhume, expansion, expeditious, explicit, expostulate, expunge, extortionate, extravaganza, exultant and 31 more...
-
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
prevarication, lie, exaggerate, fish story, bend the truth, fictionalization, whopper, obsfucation
-
See list under
Being a list of words which have the phrase "see list under" somewhere in their definitions.
Also, further proof that the folks who put together the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia w...aggravate, exaggerate, abash, affliction, ponder, abject, dolorous, spelt
ruzuzu "In the fine arts, to heighten extravagantly or disproportionately in effect or design: as, to exaggerate particular features in a painting or statue. Synonyms and To strain, stretch, overcolor, caricature. See list under aggravate." --CD&C Jan 30, 2012
uselessness Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. Jan 25, 2007
grassdog I've told you a thousand times, don't exaggerate! Jan 25, 2007