HYPERBOLE

'Hyperbole' (pronounced or "hy-PER-buh-lee"; "HY-per-bowl" is a mispronunciation) is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, and is not meant to be taken literally.
Hyperbole is used to create emphasis. It is often used in poetry and is a literary device as well as a referendum.
Some examples include:

★ "He has a brain the size of a pea."

★ "I could eat a horse."

★ "I've heard that a million times."

★ "She is a hundred feet tall."
Antonyms to hyperbole include meiosis, litotes, and understatement.
In show business, hyperbole (known as 'hype' or ''media hype'') is the practice of spending money on public relations in an attempt to bolster public interest in (for example) a movie, television show, or performing artist.^[1] Often the entertainment value of the thing being hyped is exaggerated. Consequently, hype (but not traditional, literate hyperbole) has a bad connotation.
Derived from the Greek (literally 'overshooting' or 'excess'), it is a cognate of ''hyperbola''.
Bathos is the opposite of a hyperbole. Bathos is the 'let down' after a hyperbole in a phrase.
The modern slang term ''hype'', in its usage as meaning extravagant publicity, may be derived from the word hyperbole. An example of the use of this slang term is in the 1988 song "Don't Believe the Hype" by the hip hop group Public Enemy.

Contents

See also

References

External links

See also

★ Adynaton

★ Irony

★ Gartner's Hype Cycle

★ Litotes

★ Metaphor

★ Simile

★ Technology hype

★ Zillion

★ Media hype

References

1. Hollywood, hype and audiences: selling and watching popular film in the 1990s, Austin, Thomas, , , Manchester University Press, 2002,

External links

★ A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples

★ Audio illustrations of hyperbole as figure of speech