Hyperbole

//haɪˈpɜːbəli// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Deliberate or unintentional overstatement, particularly extreme overstatement. rhetoric, uncountable

    "Hyperbole soars too high, or creeps too low, Exceeds the truth, things wonderful to shew."

  2. 2
    extravagant exaggeration wordnet
  3. 3
    An instance or example of such overstatement. countable

    "[…]and when he ſpeakes, / 'Tis like a Chime a mending. With tearmes vnſquar' / Which from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropt, / Would ſeemes Hyperboles"

  4. 4
    A hyperbola. countable, obsolete

Synonyms

All synonyms
exaggerationoverstatementabandonabstractionismaggrandizementamplification

Example

More examples

""Zelda, this is Ganon's place! Look at the floor—" "At last you have found my house!" "...I won't tolerate hyperbole.""

Etymology

From Middle English iperbole, yperbole, from Latin hyperbolē, from Ancient Greek ὑπερβολή (huperbolḗ, “excess, exaggeration”), from ὑπέρ (hupér, “above”) + βάλλω (bállō, “I throw”, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH-). Doublet of hyperbola.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.