exaggeration
Americannoun
-
the act of exaggerating or overstating.
-
an instance of exaggerating; an overstatement.
His statement concerning the size of his income is a gross exaggeration.
Other Word Forms
- nonexaggeration noun
- overexaggeration noun
- self-exaggeration noun
Etymology
Origin of exaggeration
1555–65; < Latin exaggerātiōn- (stem of exaggerātiō ), equivalent to exaggerāt ( us ) ( see exaggerate) + -iōn- -ion
Explanation
If you're prone to exaggeration, it means you habitually overstate the truth. If you have a dog and a hamster, it would be an exaggeration to describe yourself as "practically Doctor Dolittle," living in a house full of animals. When you make something showier, or more noticeable than normal, that's also called exaggeration. The exaggeration of your hand movements might be necessary on stage so the audience can see them, but in real life it just looks silly. Exaggeration comes from the Latin word exaggerare, which means to magnify or to heap or pile on.
Vocabulary lists containing exaggeration
AP English Lit exam terms
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Essential Literary Terms
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Theodore Roosevelt on "The Man with the Muck Rake" (1906)
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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.
Epidemiologist Abby Lippman dubbed such exaggeration of what genes do “geneticization,” and Ball calls geneticization a “hair’s breadth away from eugenics.”
From Slate • Mar. 19, 2026
Seyfried’s performance is, no exaggeration, one of the finest and most mesmerizing turns any actor has given across the thriller genre.
From Salon • Jan. 31, 2026
It’s no exaggeration to call the joint U.S.-U.K. military post on the island roughly 1,000 miles southwest of India a vital forward military deployment.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 28, 2026
“We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years,” he added.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 29, 2025
Robbie made a great show of removing his boots which weren’t dirty at all, and then, as an afterthought, took his socks off as well, and tiptoed with comic exaggeration across the wet floor.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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.
