exaggeration
Americannoun
-
exaggerations
plural
-
the act of exaggerating or overstating.
-
an instance of exaggerating; an overstatement.
His statement concerning the size of his income is a gross exaggeration.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of exaggeration
1555–65; < Latin exaggerātiōn- (stem of exaggerātiō ), equivalent to exaggerāt ( us ) ( see exaggerate) + -iōn- -ion
Explanation
If you're prone to exaggeration, it means you habitually overstate the truth. If you have a dog and a hamster, it would be an exaggeration to describe yourself as "practically Doctor Dolittle," living in a house full of animals. When you make something showier, or more noticeable than normal, that's also called exaggeration. The exaggeration of your hand movements might be necessary on stage so the audience can see them, but in real life it just looks silly. Exaggeration comes from the Latin word exaggerare, which means to magnify or to heap or pile on.
Vocabulary lists containing exaggeration
AP English Lit exam terms
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Theodore Roosevelt on "The Man with the Muck Rake" (1906)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The building, as he observes with only a little exaggeration, “houses not just the government but the American psyche.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
The word "rot" is clearly an exaggeration, but new research suggests that heavy television viewing may still have meaningful consequences for brain health.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
He thought the cost quoted by Jersey Water was an "exaggeration" and that the panel's lower-cost calculations were based on retro-fitting existing water treatment plants rather than building a new one.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
“When I called 911, this is no exaggeration, I was on hold for 30 minutes before I got a person. Thirty full minutes,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
Somehow I should have expected that a room furnished as this was in such exquisite taste, for all the exaggeration of the flowers, would be a place of decoration only, languorous and intimate.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
It was one of several exaggerations throughout the wide-ranging interview.
From Salon ● May 10, 2026
"When I used to give a demo, I used to get so excited. I was like a kid," Molyneux admits of some of his past exaggerations.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2026
More important, we should be wary of the vast chasm between the frenzied exaggerations of the media that attend this case and its actual significance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
Immergut found Oregon far more believable, dismissing many of the government’s assertions as exaggerations or worse.
From Slate ● Nov. 15, 2025
I’ve always suspected that notions like a “hot hand” or a “clutch hitter” or a “team that always comes back” were exaggerations used by sports- writers and sportscasters just to have something to talk about.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
