Other forms: hyperboles
Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration for effect. Pure hyperbole, without hyperbole, prone to hyperbole.
It is not lying, since nobody is meant to believe it: saying you have told somebody a thousand times is hyperbole and everybody knows it. It is said in four syllables, which catches out anybody who meets it in print first.
1nounhyperboleDeliberate exaggeration for effect.
“Saying the queue was a mile long was hyperbole, but it really was very long.”
hyperbole is an exaggeration.
Greek hyperbole means excess, from hyper, beyond, plus ballein, to throw.
Latin
hyperbolē
Middle English
iperbole
English, today
hyperbole
Built from
From Middle English iperbole, from Latin hyperbolē. From Middle English iperbole, yperbole, from Latin hyperbolē, from Ancient Greek ὑπερβολή (“excess, exaggeration”), from ὑπέρ (“above”) + βάλλω (“to throw”). a doublet of hyperbola.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA