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
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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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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.
See Examples For:
That’s an exaggeration, but I get his point.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
"It is no exaggeration to call this extreme heat a 'disaster' with many people being rushed to hospitals or even dying as a result of heatstroke," it said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
The word "rot" is clearly an exaggeration, but new research suggests that heavy television viewing may still have meaningful consequences for brain health.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
If attributing the outbreak of the Civil War to the publication of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was an exaggeration, it was a defensible one.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
That was an exaggeration, but I was pleased by how Anna May presented me.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
"When I used to give a demo, I used to get so excited. I was like a kid," Molyneux admits of some of his past exaggerations.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2026
Immergut found Oregon far more believable, dismissing many of the government’s assertions as exaggerations or worse.
From Slate ● Nov. 15, 2025
Such exaggerations of scale—both up and down, but mostly up—are a key dynamic in the V&R vision.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2025
Throughout the men’s incarceration, the administration used blanket statements and exaggerations that obscured the truth about who they are and why they were targeted.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2025
While it was true that the rogue stories were full of exaggerations and lies, they had also stumbled into the truth.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
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.
