hyperbole
noun
Did you know?
In the 5th century B.C.E. there was a rabble-rousing Athenian politician named Hyperbolus. Since Hyperbolus is known to history as a demagogue, i.e. “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power,” one might be tempted to assume that his name played a role in the development of the modern English word hyperbole, but that's not the case. Although that noun does come to us from Greek (by way of Latin), it does so instead from the Greek verb hyperballein, meaning “to exceed,” which itself was formed from hyper-, meaning “beyond,” and ballein, “to throw.” Hyperbolus may have preferred to take the undeserved credit, of course.
Did you know?
How is hyperbole pronounced—and why?
This word doesn't behave the way we expect a word that's spelled this way to behave. It begins with the prefix hyper-, which we know in words like hyperlink (and in the adjective hyper itself), but instead of having the accent, or emphasis, on the first syllable—HYE-per-link—it has the accent on the second syllable: hye-PER-buh-lee. And then there's that bole. It should sound just like the word bowl, right? Nope. Instead it's two syllables: \buh-lee\ .
The word comes to English directly from Latin, but the Latin word is from a Greek word that has one crucial visual difference. It has a line, called a macron, over the final e: hyperbolē. The macron tells us that the vowel is pronounced like \ee\ .
The fact that hyperbole is pronounced in a way counter to the usual workings of English pronunciation gives a hint as to the word's history in the language. Although these days you might encounter hyperbole in a magazine at the doctor's office, the word's first use was technical. It's from the field of rhetoric, which makes it at home with terms like metaphor, trope, and litotes. And speaking of litotes (pronounced \LYE-tuh-teez\ ), that term is an approximate antonym of hyperbole. It refers to understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negation of the contrary, as in "not a bad idea" or "not unpleasant."
Synonyms
Examples of hyperbole in a Sentence
Steve Rushin, Sports Illustrated, 1 Apr. 2002
… balanced on the razor edge of anachronism, creating a rich stew of accepted and invented history, anecdote, myth and hyperbole.
—T. Coraghessan Boyle, New York Times Book Review, 18 May 1997
Even if we discount the hyperbole evident in such accounts, they were far from inventions.
—Lawrence W. Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 1993
“enough food to feed a whole army” is a common example of hyperbole
Sareen Habeshian, Axios, 22 Oct. 2024
Nobody likes that, that type of stuff and that type of hyperbole.
—Tal Axelrod, ABC News, 20 Oct. 2024
There is no hyperbole in the observation that any handful of those voters, or the millions like them, has the power to tip the country’s fortunes.
—Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2024
Lawmakers should have known this could be interpreted to criminalize a great deal of political speech that relies on effective overstatement, hyperbole, and comical inference.
—The Editors, National Review, 4 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for hyperbole 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hyperbole.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near hyperbole
Cite this Entry
“Hyperbole.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hyperbole. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.
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hyperbole
noun
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