exaggerate
Americanverb (used with object)
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exaggerates,
present (3rd person singular)
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exaggerated,
past participle, past
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exaggerating
present participle
verb (used without object)
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exaggerates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
exaggerated,
past participle, past
-
exaggerating
present participle
verb
-
to regard or represent as larger or greater, more important or more successful, etc, than is true
-
(tr) to make greater, more noticeable, etc, than usual
his new clothes exaggerated his awkwardness
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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exaggerationnoun
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exaggeratornoun
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overexaggerateverb
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exaggerativeadjective
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nonexaggeratingadjective
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unexaggeratingadjective
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exaggeratinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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exaggeratesimple
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exaggeratessimple
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have exaggeratedperfect
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has exaggeratedperfect
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am exaggeratingprogressive
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are exaggeratingprogressive
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is exaggeratingprogressive
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have been exaggeratingperfect progressive
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has been exaggeratingperfect progressive
Past
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exaggeratedsimple
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had exaggeratedperfect
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was exaggeratingprogressive
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were exaggeratingprogressive
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had been exaggeratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of exaggerate
First recorded in 1525–35; from Latin exaggerātus “heaped up,” past participle of exaggerāre “to heap up,” from ex- ex- 1 + agger “heap” + -āre, infinitive verb suffix
Explanation
When you exaggerate you stretch the truth. Fishermen tend to exaggerate the size of their fish. And children tend to exaggerate the seriousness of their cuts in order to get cute Band-Aids. We all have a tendency to exaggerate. It makes our stories funnier, or more dramatic. After all, when you exaggerate, you're not really lying — you're just overstating things. The word exaggerate can also suggest that a particular characteristic is overdone or almost larger than life. If you describe someone as having an exaggerated limp, he or she might be walking like a gorilla.
Vocabulary lists containing exaggerate
Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items
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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:
"If Isak maybe makes a bit more of it. I hate to see players exaggerate, but he's going to score. It's a big moment in the game."
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026
That said, I don’t want to exaggerate what’s happened to me so far.
From Salon ● Oct. 16, 2026
These two categories often gyrate up and down and exaggerate changes in GDP.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026
Historians say Barton tends to cherry-pick quotes or exaggerate the Christian influence on America’s founding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
That was a point; could not tautology exaggerate it?
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
The bigger this ratio, the more extreme the moves can be as leverage exaggerates them.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 15, 2026
Mr. Futterman occasionally exaggerates his case with over-the-top prose.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
Tech’s overwhelming dominance of the S&P 500, where the top 10 stocks in the market comprise around 40% of its market value, and crucially a third of its collective earnings, exaggerates the ongoing pullback.
From Barron's ● Nov. 5, 2025
Dr Simon Williams at Swansea University now thinks health authorities have to be clearer about the dangers of some infectious diseases, in the face of online misinformation which often exaggerates the small risk of vaccines.
From BBC ● Jan. 15, 2025
He exaggerates the word “theater” so that it sounds like thee-a-tah.
From "The Fourteenth Goldfish" by Jennifer L. Holm
He highlighted how exaggerated some moves were in the most popular hedge fund longs and shorts and pointed to it being the second-most volatile day of the year for this class of stocks.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026
Colombian deputy environment minister David Olarte Amaya, who is attending the summit, said the concerns about his country were exaggerated.
From Barron's ● Oct. 23, 2026
Meanwhile, the ABI's figures found that exaggerated loss remains the most common type of insurance fraud, with 26,900 cases identified.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
Muñoz admits he exaggerated his skill set to get his foot in the door, but he was determined to make the opportunity count.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
Papa slurped his soup in an exaggerated fashion.
From "A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata
Some computer models are accused of exaggerating the significance of their findings, with the human researchers that oversee them then believing some of the claims without enough scepticism.
From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2026
The allegations in these indictments apparently are that they went beyond exaggerating the threats and actually supported these organizations to make them bigger threats so they could then monitor them or do whatever they did.
From Slate ● Aug. 22, 2026
In a recent Visier survey of 1,000 U.S. workers, 48% admitted to exaggerating their AI usage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
“His kind of self-mythologizing and exaggerating is part of what makes his youth so interesting.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
And it didn’t take much listening to tell he was lying, or at least doing some real good exaggerating, just like I do!
From "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
