hyperbole

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English iperbole, also yperbole,^[2][3][1] borrowed from Latin hyperbolē,^[2][4][3][5] from Ancient Greek ὑπερβολή (huperbolḗ, “excess, exaggeration”),^[6][7][1] literally "a throwing beyond",^[4] formed from ὑπέρ (hupér, “above, beyond”) and βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”),^[1][4][5] from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to throw, reach”).^[1][4] The OED takes the English word directly from Greek and compares French hyperbole, earlier yperbole;^[6] Barnhart suggests that the Middle French word may have influenced the borrowing from Latin.^[3] The same Greek noun, in its geometrical sense, is the source of hyperbola.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The figure of speech that exaggerates: before 1425, in a gloss of the later Wycliffite Bible, which explains a passage of 1 Kings (3 Kings in the Vulgate) as said "bi figuratif speche, clepid iperbole, to signefie the multitude of sacrifices".^[2][3] The OED's first record is from Thomas More's Dialogue concerning Heresies (1529),^[6] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1520–30.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The rhetorical sense of the Greek word, "exaggeration", is first found in Isocrates and Aristotle; its older sense was "excess".^[6][4] English took the word as a term of rhetoric, and in the 15th century Reginald Pecock used it of passages of Scripture to be read figuratively.^[2] From 1598, in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, it also named a single exaggerated statement, with a plural.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a figure in rhetorick by which any thing is increased or diminished beyond the exact truth".^[9] Between 1579 and 1717 hyperbole was also used in geometry for the curve now called the hyperbola,^[6] and a general sense, "excess, extravagance", is recorded from 1652 but is rare.^[6] A verb hyperbole, to exaggerate, is recorded from 1698, in a letter of Locke.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1425 – iperbole, the rhetorical figure of exaggeration.^[2][3]
• 1529 – hyperbole, in Thomas More.^[6]
• 1579 – in geometry, a hyperbola (obsolete by 1717).^[6]
• 1598 – an instance of the figure, an exaggerated statement.^[6]
• 1652 – excess, extravagance (rare).^[6]
• 1698 – verb, to exaggerate.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Deliberate and obvious exaggeration used for emphasis or effect, not meant to be taken literally, as in I've told you a million times; a figure of speech of this kind.^{[5][10][11][6]}
2. An instance of this; an exaggerated statement or claim.^[6][11]

Word family

• hyperbolist
• hyperbolism
• hyperbolize
• hyperbolic

Related words

• hyperbola
• hyper-

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster