magnify

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English magnifien,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French magnifier (“to glorify, magnify”),^[3][5][6] also magnefiier,^[7][2] and perhaps directly borrowed from Latin magnificō (“to esteem greatly, extol”),^[8][9][10] from magnificus (“great, noble, splendid”),^[4][8][7] literally "doing great deeds",^[7] from magnus (“great”) and the combining form of faciō (“to make, do”),^[7][6] from Proto-Indo-European *meg- (“great”) and Proto-Indo-European *dhe- (“to set, put”).^[7] The Old French verb is recorded from the early 12th century,^[8] and the Anglo-Norman Dictionary's earliest record is from the first half of that century.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To praise and glorify, and also to make greater: about 1380 as the gerund magnyfying in Chaucer's House of Fame, and before 1382 in the Wycliffite Bible.^[5][8] The Middle English Dictionary also gives "to spread the fame of".^[2]

Semantic evolution

Early use is tied closely to the Bible: the verb first means to give honour to God or a person, as in the Authorized Version's "My soule doth magnifie the Lord" (Luke 1:46), a sense now archaic.^[12][9][8] The second early sense, to make greater in size, status or importance, matches the post-classical Latin use "to increase, enlarge" in the Vulgate.^[8] Gower uses the verb ten times as "to make great".^[13] Johnson (1755) still lists "to exaggerate", "to amplify" and "to extol" together.^[14]

The sense of representing a thing as greater than it is appears in the OED in 1605,^[8] while Barnhart dates this application to 1759 and the Shorter Oxford to the middle of the 18th century.^[5][9] The optical sense appears in 1631 in a poem of Donne's, in the OED's record,^[8] and in 1665 in the writings of Boyle.^[5] The OED notes that it is principally English, where other languages use French grossir, Italian ingrandire and Spanish ampliar.^[8][7] From cant, the verb also came to mean "to have effect; to matter", recorded from 1712 in the Spectator,^[8] and in Wright's dialect dictionary from Ireland, Gloucestershire and Devon: "That hurt won't magnify."^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – the gerund magnyfying, in Chaucer's House of Fame.^[5]
• before 1382 – to praise highly, to glorify, especially God; to make greater in size, status or importance, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[8][5]
• 1605 – to represent as greater than in reality, to exaggerate, in a letter of H. Wotton.^[8]
• before 1631 – to increase the apparent size of an object through a lens, in Donne.^[8] Barnhart and Etymonline date this sense to the 1660s.^[5][7]
• 1650s – magnifying glass.^[7]
• 1665 – without an object, to bring about magnification, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.^[8]
• 1712 – to have effect, to signify (originally cant, then regional).^[8][15]
• 1814 – without an object, to become larger or greater.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make something look larger than it is, as a lens or microscope does: The screen magnifies the text for readers with poor sight.^[16][8][9]
2. Without an object, to produce this effect, often with a measure of the degree: This telescope magnifies sixty times.^[8]
3. To make greater; to increase or intensify: The echo in the hall magnified each footstep.^[4][8]
4. To make something seem more important than it is; to exaggerate: Rumour magnified a small quarrel into a feud.^[16][8][9]
5. (archaic) To praise highly; to glorify or extol, especially God.^{[4][16][8][9]}
6. (dialect) To have effect; to signify or matter, in Ireland, Gloucestershire and Devon.^[15][8][9]

Word family

• magnifiable
• overmagnify
• remagnify
• magnifier
• magnification
• magnifying glass

Related words

• minify
• magnificent
• magnificence
• magnific
• Magnificat
• magnum
• -fy

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins