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Exaggerate is a verb that refers to the act of amplifying, overstating, or embellishing something beyond its true or original state or condition. When a person exaggerates, they intentionally or unintentionally enhance the scale, intensity, importance, or significance of a fact, event, situation, or description.
Exaggeration often involves adding extra details, stretching the truth, or using vivid language to make something appear more dramatic, extreme, or intense than it actually is. This distortion can occur due to various reasons, such as emotional excitement, the desire to grab attention or impress others, or merely for humor or emphasis.
The term can be seen in various contexts, including storytelling, advertising, marketing, literature, or everyday communication. For example, in a humorous conversation, a person may exaggerate the difficulties they faced during the day to emphasize their point or entertain others. Similarly, salespeople may exaggerate the benefits or effectiveness of a product to persuade potential customers to purchase it.
Exaggeration should be distinguished from outright falsehoods or lies, as exaggerating inherently involves a grain of truth that is being exaggerated. However, excessive or repetitive exaggeration can undermine credibility and integrity, potentially leading to a loss of trust or misinterpretation of information.
In conclusion, exaggeration refers to the act of magnifying or embellishing something beyond its actual state or condition through the use of extra details, dramatic language, or stretching the truth.
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To enlarge beyond the truth; to colour highly; to tell more than the truth.
Etymological and pronouncing dictionary of the English language. By Stormonth, James, Phelp, P. H. Published 1874.
* The statistics data for these misspellings percentages are collected from over 15,411,110 spell check sessions on www.spellchecker.net from Jan 2010 - Jun 2012.
The word "exaggerate" originated from the Latin verb "exaggerare", which can be broken down into two parts: "ex" meaning "out" or "beyond" and "aggerare" meaning "to heap up" or "to increase". So, the literal meaning of "exaggerare" is "to heap up beyond measure". Through time, this Latin term was adopted into Old French as "exagérer" and later made its way into English as "exaggerate" around the 16th century.
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CONDITIONAL PRESENT PROGRESSIVE
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