aggrandize

/əˈɡɹændaɪ̯z/

aggrandize verb: to make great; to enlarge; to increase.

Verb

aggrandize (third-person singular simple present aggrandizes, present participle aggrandizing, simple past and past participle aggrandized)

(transitive) To make great; to enlarge; to increase.
- to aggrandize one's authority, distress
- [They] doe adde vnto the bitternesse of that Day, and agrandise the heauie weight of trouble.1624, Richard Montagu, Immediate Addresse vnto God Alone, London: Matthew Lownes and William Barret, page 19
Synonyms:

embiggen, greaten, grow
(transitive) To make great or greater in power, rank, honor, or wealth (applied to persons, countries, etc.).
- […] the aggrandizing of your estate by well managed fortune […] may well set out your praises to the world […]1635, David Person, “To the Right Honovrable Thomas Earle of Hadington”, in Varieties, London: Thomas Alchorn
- […] under pretence of ſecuring the purity of religion, he had laid a ſcheme of aggrandizing his own family, by extending its dominions over all Germany.1759, David Hume, “[Henry VIII.] Chapter IV.”, in The History of England, under the House of Tudor. […], volume I, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, page 165
Synonyms:

elevate, empower, ennoble
(formal, transitive) To make appear great or greater; to exalt.
- aggrandize one's accomplishments and downplay others'
- […] they contrive to make all approaches to them difficult and vexatious, and imagine that they aggrandize themſelves by waſting the time of others in uſeleſs attendance, and by mortifying them with ſlights, and teazing them with affronts.1750 October 9 (Gregorian calendar), Samuel Johnson, “No. [56]. Friday, September 29. 1750.”, in The Rambler, volume III, Edinburgh: [[…] Sands, Murray, and Cochran]; sold by W. Gordon, C. Wright, J....
Synonyms:

extol, laud, praise, applaud, enthrone, appraise, belaud, bepraise, commend, cry up
(intransitive, rare) To increase or become great.
- The generals, like Hitler, wanted Germany to aggrandize at the expense of neighboring countries, and to do so if necessary by force or threat of force.1946, Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 2, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, p. 317
Synonyms:

enlarge, expand, swell

aggrandize meaning in Bengali

aggrandize in Bengali

শক্তি, মর্যাদা বৃদ্ধি করা

Examples of aggrandize in a sentence

The tendency may be to aggrandize power at all cost, to aggrandize power but to calculate soberly the risks involved, to conserve existing power, or even to yield power.1970, Benjamin I. Schwartz, Communism in China: Ideology in Flux, New York: Atheneum, page 10:
They noted the use of his [the gunman’s] name is hurtful to the victims’ families and using it could assist anyone who might want to aggrandize his actions.2015 January 16, Associated Press, “Sandy Hook committee to propose ban on guns that fire more than 10 rounds”, in The Guardian, London...

Synonyms of aggrandize

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

demean

All synonyms and antonyms of aggrandize

Forms of aggrandize

third-person singular present	aggrandizes
present participle	aggrandizing
past participle	aggrandized
past	aggrandized
alternative form	aggrandise

Origin of aggrandize

From French agrandir. By surface analysis, ag- + grand + -ize.

Words formed from aggrandize

Questions about aggrandize

What does aggrandize mean?: Aggrandize means to make great; to enlarge; to increase.
What is aggrandize in Bengali?: Aggrandize in Bengali is শক্তি, মর্যাদা বৃদ্ধি করা. See Aggrandize meaning in Bengali.
How do you use aggrandize in a sentence?: The tendency may be to aggrandize power at all cost, to aggrandize power but to calculate soberly the risks involved, to conserve existing power, or even to yield power.
What part of speech is aggrandize?: Aggrandize is a verb.
How do you pronounce aggrandize?: Aggrandize is pronounced /əˈɡɹændaɪ̯z/.
What is the past tense of aggrandize?: The past tense of aggrandize is aggrandized.

Words near aggrandize in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: aggrandize (page history and authors); aggrandize (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vanderdecken-aggrandize.wav.

Cite this entry: “aggrandize.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/aggrandize. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.