exaggerate

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To make something seem larger, better, or worse than it really is.

   I've told you a thousand times not to exaggerate!

Simplified etymology

Exaggerate comes from Latin exaggerare, “to heap up,” from agger, “heap.” It originally meant “to pile up or accumulate” and later “to make much of” or “to emphasize.”

Borrowed from Latin exaggerātus, perfect passive participle of exaggerō (“to heap up, increase, enlarge, magnify, amplify, exaggerate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from ex- (“out, up”) + aggerō, aggerāre (“to heap up”), from agger (“a pile, heap, mound, dike, mole, pier, etc.”), from aggerō, aggerere (“to bear, carry to (some place), bring together”), from ad- (“to, toward”) + gerō (“to carry”).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary