hyperbole · noun — deliberate or unintentional overstatement, particularly extreme overstatement. It carries an Arena rating of 1885, earned across 90 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, hyperbole ranks #135 of 42,820 for Qualifying, #192 of 17,128 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #681 of 17,136 for Most Malleable Words, #1,104 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
hyperbole is pronounced /haɪˈpɜːbəli/.
Why “hyperbole” is a great word
Hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration deployed for emphasis or effect, not to be taken literally but to amplify a feeling or claim. Its journey is one of overshoot: from Middle English *iperbole*, from Latin *hyperbolē*, from Ancient Greek ὑπερβολή (*huperbolḗ*, 'excess, exaggeration'), from ὑπέρ (*hupér*, 'above, beyond') + βάλλω (*bállō*, 'to throw'). Unlike litotes, which whispers a truth through understated negation, or metaphor, which constructs a resonant likeness, hyperbole is a solitary, grandiloquent gesture of excess. It is the declaration of waiting 'a thousand years,' the complaint of a backpack 'weighing a ton,' or the claim of being 'so hungry I could eat a horse'—a testament to the human need to make the inner scale of things visible. In its excess, a kind of emotional truth is flung beyond the facts, landing not where it began, but where feeling takes root.
❧ Written by Lexicurio’s AI
Etymology
From Middle English iperbole, yperbole, from Latin hyperbolē, from Ancient Greek ὑπερβολή (huperbolḗ, “excess, exaggeration”), from ὑπέρ (hupér, “above”) + βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH-). Doublet of hyperbola.
noun
- Deliberate or unintentional overstatement, particularly extreme overstatement.e.g.“Hyperbole soars too high, or creeps too low,
Exceeds the truth, things wonderful to shew.” — 1835, L[arret] Langley, “[The Seven Tropes.] Hyperbole.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 12:
- An instance or example of such overstatement.
- A hyperbola.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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