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Vocabulary Discovery: Sept. 30, 2010

Let’s discover all the wonderful words in our English language one at a time. English if full of fun words that we just cannot ignore. I challenge you to discover new words daily. Have your children write sentences, an essay or give examples of how the word can be used.

Today’s word is HYBERBOLE

Definition:

extravagant exaggeration
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Hyperbole (, from ancient Greek ‘exaggeration’) is a rhetorical device in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole

Extreme exaggeration or overstatement; especially as a literary or rhetorical device; Deliberate exaggeration; An instance or example of this technique; A hyperbola
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hyperbole

In literary criticism, deliberate exaggeration used to achieve an effect. In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth hyperbolizes when she says, “All the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten this little hand.”
www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_fh.htm

Thesaurus Check:

Aggrandizemen

Amplification

elaboration

fish story

flight of fancy

magnification

overemphasis

whopper

yarn

Examples of word used in a sentence:

My sister hyperbolizes when she says she is so hungry she could eat ten elephants.

My teacher asked me to think of hyperbole statements to spice up my story.

A hyperbole is a figure of speech.

Uses of the word hyperbole:

I am so hungry I could eat a horse.

It hurt so bad I thought my arm would fall off.

All the make up in the world could not make a pug a beauty queen.

Activities:

Be on the lookout for hyperboles used on TV, in Ads or in conversation. The one who spots the most wins!

Write a notebook page of 15 hyperboles.

Use a hyperbole to describe a sunset or how hungry you are, or how tall a giant is, or how much you want a particular toy for Christmas.

To see how silly and exaggerated hyperboles can be draw pictures of your favorites.

I will return with more fun vocabulary words soon but right now I have a mountain of laundry to wash. (hee hee)

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