hyperbole
/hʌɪˈpəːbəli
/noun [mass noun]
Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally: he vowed revenge with oaths and hyperboles [mass noun]: you can’t accuse us of hyperbole...
- Behind every food scare, there is a barrage of claims and counter-claims, hyperbole and damage limitation.
- Whether Alice actually wanted to put a hospital in the casino or the claim is merely gossipy hyperbole is unclear.
- He's using exaggeration and hyperbole to be entertaining - lots of writers do that.
Synonyms
exaggeration, overstatement, magnification, amplification, embroidery, embellishment, overplaying, excess, overkill
informal purple prose, puffery
Derivatives
hyperbolical
/ adjective ...- According to the publisher's hyperbolical publicity, the book covers ‘every aspect’ of Western medical history.
- Even if one goes so far as to say that the use of flashlight powder is ‘dangerous’, it is hyperbolical to describe it as ‘extra-hazardous’.
- Earlier this year a legendary figure in the hyperbolical world of ‘supermarket’ tabloids, the inimitable Eddie Clontz, died.
hyperbolically
- The poem opens hyperbolically with an image of an innocent young nymph who spends her days reclining in the grass.
- But his account of the possibilities for response to this inheritance is hyperbolically overblown.
- Even Roger Ebert, who hyperbolically called it the worst film he'd ever seen at the festival, has given his upward-thumb to this renovated version.
hyperbolism
/ noun ...- This, of course, is expressed in poetry in which hyperbolism, exaggeration, is the fundamental law.
- Like the Caroline poets of his epoch, Brome's use of rhetorical hyperbolism is also linked to the eye of the one who beholds.
- It is no hyperbolism that the campaign period is the most critical and sensitive stage in any presidential and parliamentary elections.
Origin
Late Middle English: via Latin from Greek huperbolē (see hyperbola).