Exaggeration

Exaggeration is the representation of something as more extreme or dramatic than it is, intentionally or unintentionally. It can be a rhetorical device or figure of speech, used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression.

Amplifying achievements, obstacles and problems to seek attention is an everyday occurrence Inflating the difficulty of achieving a goal after attaining it, can be used to bolster self-esteem.

In the arts, exaggerations are used to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, exaggerations are often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. Many times the usages of hyperbole describes something as better or worse than it really is. An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton." Hyperbole makes the point that the bag was very heavy, though it probably does not weigh a ton.

Exaggerating is also a type of deception, as well as a means of malingering – magnifying small injuries or discomforts as an excuse to avoid responsibilities.

The word has origins in the mid-16th century: from Latin exaggerat- 'heaped up', from the verb exaggerare, from ex- 'thoroughly' + aggerare 'heap up' (from agger 'heap'). The word originally meant 'pile up, accumulate', later 'intensify praise or blame', giving rise to current senses.

The exaggerator has been a familiar figure in Western culture since at least Aristotle's discussion of the alazon.

Harold Bloom describes expressionist art as attempting to "intensify the expression of feeling and attitude by exaggeration". Harold Osborne writes that in its wake, even the "new and hard realism...kept much of the distortion and exaggeration which had been one of the chief devices of earlier Expressionism".

Although primarily a comic figure, the boastful alazon may be one aspect of the tragic hero as well: the touch of miles gloriosus ("braggart soldier") in Tamburlaine, even in Othello, has been commented upon, as has the touch of the obsessed philosopher in Faustus and Hamlet'.