exaggeratus

Forms

exaggerātus (feminine exaggerāta, neuter exaggerātum; comparative exaggerātior); first/second-declension adjective^[1][2]

Etymology

Used as an adjective, it is the past participle from Latin exaggerō (“to heap up; to amplify”).^[1][3] The verb is formed from ex- and aggerō² (“to heap up”).^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Petronius has it in the Satyricon, of style: exaggerata verborum volubilitate, “with a heightened flow of words”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The OLD records it as a term of rhetoric, “cumulative”.^[1] Gellius uses the comparative adverb exaggeratius of amplified expression.^[6] Augustine uses it figuratively for something terrible.^[5]

Timeline

• before 66 AD – Petronius uses it of an amplified flow of words.^[5]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius has the comparative exaggeratius.^[6][7]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it in the sense “terrible”.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (rhetoric) Amplified, heightened; cumulative.^[1][5][3]
2. (Late Latin, figurative) Terrible.^[5]

Usage notes

VOLI warns that it does not mean Italian esagerato and should not be translated by it.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
3. ^ a b c Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
5. ^ a b c d e f Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de