aggrandize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
-
to increase the power, wealth, prestige, scope, etc, of
-
to cause (something) to seem greater; magnify; exaggerate
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
aggrandizesimple
-
aggrandizessimple
-
have aggrandizedperfect
-
has aggrandizedperfect
-
am aggrandizingprogressive
-
are aggrandizingprogressive
-
is aggrandizingprogressive
-
have been aggrandizingperfect progressive
-
has been aggrandizingperfect progressive
Past
-
aggrandizedsimple
-
had aggrandizedperfect
-
was aggrandizingprogressive
-
were aggrandizingprogressive
-
had been aggrandizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of aggrandize
1625–35; < French aggrandiss- (long stem of aggrandir to magnify), equivalent to ag- ag- + grand ( see grand) + -iss -ish 2, irregular equated with -ize ( def. )
Explanation
If you are a window washer, but you refer to yourself as a "vista enhancement specialist," then you are aggrandizing your job title — that is, making it sound greater than it is. The verb aggrandize not only means "to make appear greater"; it can also be used to mean simply "to make greater." If you buy an estate and sink millions of dollars into its improvement, then you are actually aggrandizing the estate. If you are making yourself seem greater, then people may say you are "self-aggrandizing."
Vocabulary lists containing aggrandize
100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Face It: Selfie Vocab
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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:
“Experience shows that it is not wise to trust human cupidity where it has the opportunity to aggrandize itself at the expense of others,” they wrote.
From Barron's ● May 2, 2026
Yet there are none of the trappings of schools that aggrandize the M.B.A. aspirant as a master of the universe in waiting: grand atriums, leather-chaired lounges, chandelier-festooned ceilings.
From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2023
“There was never looking for credit, never looking to aggrandize himself,” Rendell told AP.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 21, 2022
It feels odd to talk about, because I don’t want to aggrandize myself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2019
All motives of a religious kind were absorbed in his prevailing passion to aggrandize the French monarchy.
From A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon For the Use of Schools and Colleges by Lord, John
Trinidad Gonzales, a history professor at South Texas College, said the pamphlet aggrandizes Manifest Destiny, the belief that American settlers had the God-given right to expand across North America.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2022
It seems like, among other things a miserable mindset, one that aggrandizes your ego but withers your soul.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 19, 2019
Nichol, who also deftly shot and edited the film, never fetishizes or aggrandizes the typewriter, but instead smartly contextualizes its place as a classic symbol of American ingenuity, practicality and style.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2017
The concept of evil being the easiest trick by which the middlebrow mind aggrandizes itself, her readers wanted Mephistopheles; but Eichmann persisted in being small.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2012
This ubiquitous possibility of the Mark's occurring—the ignorance of the archer where his gifted arrow will strike—ennobles, aggrandizes his person and his work.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845 by Various
He did everything to feel aggrandized and powerful.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2020
These slacker gestures, aggrandized with an eye-rolling statement from the artist that the “artworks are finished when they have been returned,” undercut the ambition of the other three participants.
From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2019
“He is not standing stoically or posed ‘heroically’ on a pedestal or being aggrandized in bronze,” Weitzman said.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2018
And would the predictable reaction have been helpful, or only further aggrandized terrorism and divided society?
From US News ● Oct. 26, 2016
The fathers whose sons had played merited a more aggrandized status in the fraternity of older men who queued along the passageway.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
It seems aggrandizing and selfish to dwell on it when there are many people who lost everything in the course of that single day.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 9, 2022
Fatherhood for me rests somewhere between selfless sacrifice and aggrandizing self-preservation.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 14, 2021
Once the simple baseline experience of standing on a street corner had been quantified and branded, we started aggrandizing the assorted weather phenomena that have been racking our planet for millennia.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 4, 2018
And when aggrandizing accolades start flying — the Los Angeles Philharmonic website says many regard this as the great American opera — it’s time to shout, “Now hold on thar!”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 5, 2017
And our Lord would have us "take no thought for the morrow," which surely is a dissuasion from aggrandizing ourselves, accumulating wealth, or aiming at distinction.
From Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) by Newman, John Henry
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.
