aggrandize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
aggrandizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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aggrandized,
past participle, past
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aggrandizing
present participle
verb
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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
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aggrandizesimple
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aggrandizessimple
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have aggrandizedperfect
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has aggrandizedperfect
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am aggrandizingprogressive
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are aggrandizingprogressive
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is aggrandizingprogressive
-
have been aggrandizingperfect progressive
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has been aggrandizingperfect progressive
Past
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aggrandizedsimple
-
had aggrandizedperfect
-
was aggrandizingprogressive
-
were aggrandizingprogressive
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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"
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300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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Face It: Selfie Vocab
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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:
“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
“There was never looking for credit, never looking to aggrandize himself,” Rendell told AP.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 21, 2022
Furthermore, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court refused to allow the lower court to aggrandize itself by apportioning, like a legislature, the $465 million to particular uses.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2021
It feels odd to talk about, because I don’t want to aggrandize myself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2019
For Agassiz it might be said, with a variation of the well-known adage, that there was nothing he touched that he did not aggrandize.
From Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History by Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
Jackson fired back that Barrett’s approach actually aggrandizes the role of the court and elevates it over Congress.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
With Iowa fully in the rearview mirror, expect to hear a variation on the phrase “Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks presidents,” a favorite local slogan that aggrandizes the state’s role in the nominating process.
From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2024
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
The Amazon Prime series, which returns Friday, is a sharp, entertaining, eviscerating satire of superhero franchises and the culture that aggrandizes them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2020
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
Chalamet is, of course, playing a character — an outsized version of himself, built atop the already aggrandized persona he’s become known for in his relatively short career.
From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2025
And would the predictable reaction have been helpful, or only further aggrandized terrorism and divided society?
From US News ● Oct. 26, 2016
At Farm Fresh Produce, an aggrandized stand near Moss Landing, I roamed the aisles stacked high with avocados, artichokes, pomegranates, kiwis, strawberries, kale and more.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2016
I think it’s fascinating that, as your role aggrandized there, you took on some of the natural roles for a talented IT executive but you also listed corporate strategy as one of your responsibilities.
From Forbes ● Jun. 16, 2014
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
But there is no noblesse oblige or courtly love, no dragons, witchy women or aggrandizing British accents.
From New York Times ● Oct. 13, 2021
Fatherhood for me rests somewhere between selfless sacrifice and aggrandizing self-preservation.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 14, 2021
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
The taxi's meter was aggrandizing numbers for some time when they finally found her and took her away with them.
From Tokyo to Tijuana: Gabriele Departing America by Steven (Steven David Justin) Sills
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.
