hyperbole

** Hyperbole ** (h-pûrb-l) Noun. (plural: hyperboles) **1. What is hyperbole? **  **//(1). Definition //** n A figure of speech consisting in __exaggerated or extravagant statement__, used to express a strong feeling or produce a strong impression, and __not intended to be understood literally__. //— The Oxford English Dictionary// n Hyperbole: extravagant exaggeration that represents something as much __greater or less, better or worse, or more intense__ than it really is or that depicts impossible as actual. //— Webster’s New World Dictionary // So to say, “I laughed so much I nearly died” is an example of hyperbole. It denotes that something was very funny and that someone laughed a lot, but it is extremely unlikely that someone laughed so much that they almost died. However, the phrase gives us a sense of just how funny something was. Hyperbole is very common in both everyday speech and in written English. In written English, it tends to be used within informal settings or for literary effect. It is not, for example, regarded as good practice to use hyperbole within business English; it could be regarded as unprofessional. **//(2). Synonyms //** caricature, coloring, elaboration, embellishment, embroidering, embroidery, exaggeration, magnification, overstatement, padding, stretching **//(3). Antonyms //** Understatement

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Common forms ** __ **//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">1. Use //****//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Numeral to Exaggerate //** __ l <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Her heart was breaking into a million pieces. l <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">It’s a thousand pities that you can’t come to have dinner with us. l <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">On Sundays I have a thousand and one things to do. l <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Mary’s two sons are different in their personalities in a thousand and one ways. l <span style="font-family: 宋体; font-size: 16px;">－ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">“May I ask the cause?” <span style="font-family: 宋体; font-size: 16px;">－ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">“I don’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here for that purpose?” <span style="font-family: 宋体; font-size: 16px;">－ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">“Do dozes come for that purpose?” <span style="font-family: 宋体; font-size: 16px;">－ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">“Hundreds.” Said Miss Pross. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">( //A Tale of Two Cities//, Charles Dickens )
 * <span style="color: #ff007a; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 21px;">2. Usage Examples **

**//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">2. Use Verb to //****//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Exaggerate //** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">The Prime Minister made a powerful speech which brought the house down. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Fred almost talked my ears off last night about his son’s exploits in the army. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">You can cry your eyes out all day, but you’ll get no sympathy from me.

__ **//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">3. Use Noun //****//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> to Exaggerate //** __ <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">It’s a crime to stay inside on such a beautiful day. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">We have a sea of trouble. n <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Description of heavy rain <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">In the middle of the picnic, it started to rain cats and dogs, and everybody got soaked. n <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Description of coldness <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">"I am annoyed, I’m freezing,” Alie’s snapped. “I’ve got goose bumps the size of orange.”    n <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Description of hotness    <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Heat! It was so dreadful here that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.

__ **//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">4. Use Adjective //****//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">to Exaggerate //** __ <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">I was sick of my soul. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Most Americans remember Mark Twain as the father of Huck Finn’s idyllic cruise through eternal boyhood and Tom Sawyer’s endless summer of freedom and adventure.

**//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">5. Use Subjunctive Mood, Comparative Degree and Superlative Degree //****//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">to Exaggerate //** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">A knife could have cut the tension during the seemingly endless trip back to the plantation. (Alex Haley: Roots) n <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Description of fatness <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">…and the fattest woman I have ever seen in my life dozing in a straight-backed chair. It was as if a sack of grain was supported by a matchbox. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Noise proves nothing: often a hen who has merely laid an egg crackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

__ **//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">6. More Examples //** __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">1. They ran like greased lightning. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">2. He's got tons of money. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">3. Her brain is the size of a pea. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">4. He is older than the hills. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">5. I'm so hungry I could eat a goose with its beak! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">6. I have told you a million times not to lie! <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">7. You snore louder than a freight train. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">8. I have seen this river so wide it had only one bank. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">9. She is older than the hills. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">10. That joke is so old, the last time I heard it I was riding on a dinosaur.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 140%;">**A Hyperbole Poem**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Kubla Khan**

__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//In Xanadu did Kubla Khan// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//A stately pleasure-dome decree:// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Where Alph, the sacred river, ran// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Through caverns measureless to man// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Down to a sunless sea// __

__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//So twice five miles of fertile ground// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//With walls and towers were girdled round:// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And here were forests ancient as the hills,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Enfolding sunny spots of greenery// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//A savage place! as holy and enchanted// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//By woman wailing for her demon-lover!// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//A mighty fountain momently was forced:// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//It flung up momently the sacred river// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Five miles meandering with a mazy motion// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Then reached the caverns measureless to man,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Ancestral voices prophesying war!// __

__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//The shadow of the dome of pleasure// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Floated midway on the waves;// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Where was heard the mingled measure// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//From the fountain and the caves// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//It was a miracle of rare device,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!// __

__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//A damsel with a dulcimer// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//In a vision once I saw:// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//It was an Abyssinian maid,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And on her dulcimer she played,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Singing of Mount Abora// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Could I revive within me// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Her symphony and song,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//To such a deep delight 'twould win me// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//That with music loud and long// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//I would build that dome in air,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//That sunny dome! those caves of ice!// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And all who heard should see them there,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And all should cry, Beware! Beware!// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//His flashing eyes, his floating hair!// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//Weave a circle round him thrice,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And close your eyes with holy dread,// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//For he on honey-dew hath fed// __ __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">//And drunk the milk of Paradise.// __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">by - Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">[] <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">[] <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">[] <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">[]
 * <span style="color: #ff007a; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 21px;">3. References **

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 * <span style="color: #ff007a; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 21px;">4. External link **