Exaggeration in speech or writing; especially, extravagant exaggeration that is intentional and obvious.
→ The corresponding adjective is hyperbolic (HY-pur-BAHL-ik), or, less often, hyperbolical (HY-pur-BAHL-ik-ul).
Occasionally, you will hear an educated speaker who has learned this word from reading, but who has not bothered to check its pronunciation in a dictionary, say hyperbowl. Any sports fan will tell you that there’s a Super Bowl, a Sugar Bowl, a Cotton Bowl, and a Rose Bowl, but there is no Hyper Bowl. The only recognized pronunciation is hy-PUR-buh-lee, and anything else is downright beastly.
Hyperbole comes from a Greek word meaning an excess, something that overshoots the mark. This Greek word comes in turn from a verb meaning to exceed or throw beyond. By derivation, hyperbole is extravagant language that exceeds what is necessary or overshoots the mark.
As Bergen Evans explains in his Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage (1957), “Hyperbole is the term in rhetoric for obvious exaggeration. There is no intent to deceive. The extravagant language is for emphasis only.”
Because hyperbole heightens the effect of what we say without obscuring its meaning, it’s a popular rhetorical device, and many of the most shopworn expressions in the language are hyperbolic. Here are just a few examples of hackneyed hyperbole: I owe you a million thanks; she waited for an eternity; he was eternally grateful; we are forever indebted to you; I am so tired I could sleep for a week; they ran faster than lightning; he’s as strong as an ox; your briefcase weighs a ton; my feet are killing me; he said he’d do it or die trying. These and many more hyperbolic expressions are acceptable in informal speech and excusable in the most casual forms of writing, but in situations that demand more formal and precise expression, or in which an exaggerated effect would be inappropriate, they should be scrupulously avoided.
Not all hyperbole is cliché. There are many memorable statements, withering insults, and powerful speeches that manifest an original, effective, and often striking use of hyperbole. In The Elements of Speechwriting and Public Speaking (1989), Jeff Scott Cook defines hyperbole as “an exaggeration used to emphasize a point,” and offers the following examples, among others:
Former Texas senator, vice-presidential candidate, and secretary of the treasury Lloyd Bentsen once said, “The thrift industry is really in terrible shape. It’s reached the point where if you buy a toaster, you get a free savings and loan.”
Faye Wattleton, former president of Planned Parenthood, once said, “Those ‘just say no’ [to sex] messages are about as effective at preventing [teen] pregnancy as saying ‘have a nice day’ prevents chronic depression.”
And the actor Robert Redford once quipped hyperbolically, “If you stay in Beverly Hills too long, you become a Mercedes.”
Some of the finest English poetry ever written also makes stunning use of hyperbole. One of Shakespeare’s most glorious and hyperbolic passages occurs in Antony and Cleopatra, when Enobarbus describes the wondrous, irresistible beauty of Cleopatra, who has sailed down the river Cydnus on an opulent barge. Here is a selection from that passage:
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfum’ed that
The winds were lovesick with them….
The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned i’ th’ marketplace, did sit alone,
Whistling to th’ air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.
