Other forms: exaggerated, exaggerating, exaggerates
To exaggerate is to describe something as bigger or worse than it really was. Exaggerate the danger, he exaggerates, I am not exaggerating.
It is one of the most common things people do in conversation and one of the most common accusations. Not to exaggerate and without exaggeration are ways of insisting on a claim. It cannot be exaggerated means the thing really is that important. Note exaggeration, the noun; and that exaggerate is frequently misspelled with one g, which the two syllables do nothing to discourage.
1verbexaggerateTo describe something as bigger or worse than it was.
“He exaggerates about everything and is right about most of it.”
synonyms: overstate, embellish
exaggerate is an overstating.
Also accepted in games: overstate
Latin exaggerare means to heap up — ex-, thoroughly, plus agger, a heap or mound. To exaggerate is to pile the thing higher, which is exactly what the modern word describes.
Latin
exaggerātus
English, today
exaggerate
Built from
Latin exaggerātus, perfect passive participle of exaggerō (“to heap up, increase, enlarge, magnify, amplify, exaggerate”) (see -ate and -ate), from ex- (“out, up”) + aggerō (“to heap up”), from agger (“a pile, heap, mound, dike, mole, pier, etc.”), from aggerō (“to bear, carry to (some place), bring together”), from ad- + gerō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA