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Aggrandize
"Aggrandize" in a Sentence (17 examples)
It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.
His unctuous praise of the king was clearly meant to aggrandize his own position at court.
His need to aggrandize his accomplishments caused him to obtrude himself into every conversation.
to aggrandize one's authority, distress
[They] doe adde vnto the bitternesse of that Day, and agrandise the heauie weight of trouble.
In Heroic Verſe, but eſpecially in the grander Lyrics, there are ſometimes ſuch noble Elevations of Thought and Paſſion as illuminate all Things around us, and convey to the Soul moſt exalted and magnificent Images and ſublime Sentiments: Theſe furniſh us with glorious Springs and Mediums to raiſe and aggrandize our Conceptions, […]
[…] on so small a scale, it would be impossible to give an adequate idea of a grand scene. […] Were it painted indeed with exactness on a pane of glass in a window, and the eye brought to it, under the deception of it’s being a real view; the imagination might aggrandize it.
[…] the relations of ideas to power may assume infinite variations. The tendency may be to aggrandize power at all cost, to aggrandize power but to calculate soberly the risks involved, to conserve existing power, or even to yield power.
[…] the aggrandizing of your estate by well managed fortune […] may well set out your praises to the world […]
[…] under pretence of ſecuring the purity of religion, he had laid a ſcheme of aggrandizing his own family, by extending its dominions over all Germany.
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He only wanted to aggrandize and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody else with twenty, or with ten.
[…] he seems never to have revived his schemes for aggrandizing his son by securing to him the succession to the empire.
[…] they contrive to make all approaches to them difficult and vexatious, and imagine that they aggrandize themſelves by waſting the time of others in uſeleſs attendance, and by mortifying them with ſlights, and teazing them with affronts.
The first thing to aggrandise a man in his own conceit, is to conceive of himself as neglected.
1881, Mark Twain, “Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims,” address at the first annual dinner, N.E. Society, Philadelphia, 22 December, 1881, in Mark Twain’s Speeches, New York: Harper, 1910, p. 18, Why, to be celebrating the mere landing of the Pilgrims—to be trying to make out that this most natural and simple and customary procedure was an extraordinary circumstance—a circumstance to be amazed at, and admired, aggrandized and glorified, at orgies like this for two hundred and sixty years—hang it, a horse would have known enough to land; a horse […]
They noted the use of his [the gunman’s] name is hurtful to the victims’ families and using it could assist anyone who might want to aggrandize his actions.
1946, Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 2, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, p. 317, The generals, like Hitler, wanted Germany to aggrandize at the expense of neighboring countries, and to do so if necessary by force or threat of force.
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