hyperbole
/haɪˈpɝbəli/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.93 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Hyperbole soars too high, or creeps too low, Exceeds the truth, things wonderful to shew."
- "The great staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur and magnificence."
- ""Nay, nay, good Sumach," interrupted the Deerslayer, whose love of truth was too indomitable to listen to such hyperbole, with patience[…]"
- "Of course the hymn has come to us from somewhere else, but I do not know from where; and the average native of our village firmly believes that it is indigenous to our own soil—which it can not be, unless it deals in hyperbole, for the nearest approach to a river in our neighborhood is the village pond."
- "The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. […] That's why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion."
- "In these circumstances, hyperbole is called for, the rhetorical figure that raises its objects up, excessively, way above their actual merit : it is not to deceive by exaggeration that one overshoots the mark, but to allow the true value, the truth of what is insufficiently valued, to appear."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *úp Proto-Indo-European *-er Proto-Indo-European *upér Proto-Hellenic *hupér Ancient Greek ῠ̔πέρ (hŭpér) Ancient Greek ὑπερ- (huper-) Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH-der. Proto-Hellenic *gʷəlnō Ancient Greek βάλλω (bállō) Ancient Greek ὑπερβάλλω (huperbállō) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-ā́ Ancient Greek -ᾱ (-ā) Ancient Greek -η (-ē) Ancient Greek ὑπερβολή (huperbolḗ)bor. Latin hyperbolēbor. Middle English iperbole English hyperbole 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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: iperbole, hyperbolē, ὑπερβολή, *gʷelH-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /haɪˈpɝbəli/
- British English: /haɪˈpɜːbəli/