exaggeration

1 extravagant exaggeration [syn: hyperbole]

2 the act of making something more noticeable than usual; "the dance involved a deliberate exaggeration of his awkwardness"

3 making to seem more important than it really is [syn: overstatement, magnification] [ant: understatement]

English

Etymology

From Latin exaggeratio

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eɪʃǝn

Noun

1. The act of heaping or piling up.
2. The act of exaggerating; the act of doing or representing in an excessive manner; a going beyond the bounds of truth reason, or justice; a hyperbolical representation; hyperbole; overstatement.
3. A representation of things beyond natural life, in expression, beauty, power, vigor.

Translations

• Chinese: 誇大 (kuā dà)
• Czech: přehánění
• French: exagération
• German: Übertreibung
• Hindi: अतिशयोक्ति (Ati sha yokti)
• Italian: esagerazione
• Polish: przesada

Hyperbole ( hye-PER-buh-lee; "HYE-per-bowl" is a mispronunciation) comes from Greek "υπερβολή"=exaggeration and is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, and is not meant to be taken literally.

Hyperbole is used to create emphasis. It is a literary device often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech.

Some examples include: these books weigh a ton. (weigh a great deal) I could sleep for a year. (for a long time)

Antonyms to hyperbole include meiosis, litotes, understatement, and bathos (the 'let down' after a hyperbole in a phrase).

Derived from the Greek (literally 'overshooting' or 'excess'), it is a cognate of hyperbola.

See Also

• Adynaton
• Irony
• Litotes
• Metaphor
• Simile
• Zillion

External links

• A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples
• Audio illustrations of hyperbole as figure of speech

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