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
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to regard or represent as larger or greater, more important or more successful, etc, than is true
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(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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List 4
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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:
They say AI firms exaggerate the tech's abilities to boost their prominence or profit.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
These figures do not exaggerate the amount of needed borrowing: They understate it.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 24, 2026
“A lot of people exaggerate the 9-9-6,” he says, referring to founders who post online about working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
In climate data, "noise" refers to short-erm temperature changes that can temporarily hide or exaggerate the underlying trend.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026
It is hard to exaggerate the importance of its arrival and adoption as a standard across the industrialised world.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Mr. Futterman occasionally exaggerates his case with over-the-top prose.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
One factor reinforcing Block’s motivation for shorting credit is his opinion that there is too much passive investing in the market that automatically exaggerates moves when they come.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 1, 2026
Tech’s dominance in the S&P 500, with the top 10 stocks comprising 40% of market value, exaggerates the current pullback.
From Barron's ● Nov. 5, 2025
Musk often exaggerates the abilities of the so-called Full Self-Driving mode available in Teslas, which cannot function without a human driver present.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 29, 2025
He exaggerates the word “theater” so that it sounds like thee-a-tah.
From "The Fourteenth Goldfish" by Jennifer L. Holm
At an invitation-only gathering of dozens of America’s top executives in Washington this week, business leaders overwhelmingly disagreed with the president’s assessment that dangers posed by artificial intelligence are being exaggerated.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
“He certainly exaggerated things,” said Damian Merlo, a Miami-based consultant who worked with Cerimedo on the 2023 campaign of Argentine President Javier Milei, a Trump favorite.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026
US government lawyers pushed back against the brothers' claims that they had exaggerated their wealth to massage their online personas.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
And like any good clown, he did it with exaggerated aplomb, vigorously pounding a small drum when he found a performance lacking.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Wildly exaggerated accounts of German atrocities inflamed public opinion and bolstered support for a war that was increasingly seen as a crusade against barbaric German militarism.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
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
We got in, the car lurched forward and, I’m not exaggerating, less than a block later, the driver stopped the car, jumped out and opened my door.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
“His kind of self-mythologizing and exaggerating is part of what makes his youth so interesting.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Arday is facing accusations of fabricating or exaggerating elements of his CV.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
Thomas nodded, grumbling inside, sure that Alby was exaggerating.
From "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner
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.
