embiggen

[em-big-uhn]

verb (used with or without object)

Informal: Often Facetious.

1. to make or become bigger.

   You can spot my sister if you embiggen the photo.

Word History and Origins

Origin of embiggen¹

First recorded in 1880–85 as an example of a barbarism; made popular in 1996 in an episode of the TV show The Simpsons; em- ¹ ( def. ) + big ¹ ( def. ) + -en ¹ ( def. )

Example Sentences

But unlike comics Kamala, who develops the power to embiggen parts of her body through the Inhuman terrigenesis process, Ms. Marvel’s Kamala’s abilities are apparently more cosmic in nature and involve her making energy constructs.

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Cohen came up with the word for the season seven episode "Lisa the Iconoclast," where Ms. Hoover tells Mrs. Krabappel that the slightly less fictitious "embiggen" is a "perfectly cromulent" word.

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Embiggen first appeared in 1884 when C.A.

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The OEDand Merriam-Webster finally added embiggen to their dictionaries in 2018.

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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary already has an entry for "embiggen," while the Oxford English Dictionary already has entries for all three.

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