Word.ws English Dictionary

hyperboles

hyperboles is the plural of hyperbole.

Meaning of hyperbole

Noun

hyperbole (countable and uncountable, plural hyperboles)

  1. (rhetoric, uncountable) Deliberate overstatement, particularly extreme overstatement.
    • Hyperbole soars too high, or creeps too low,
      Exceeds the truth, things wonderful to shew.1835, L[arret] Langley, “[The Seven Tropes.] Hyperbole.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 12
    Antonyms:
    understatement
  2. (countable) An instance or example of such overstatement.
    • […]and when he ſpeakes, / 'Tis like a Chime a mending. With tearmes vnſquar' / Which from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropt, / Would ſeemes Hyperbolesc. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  3. (countable, obsolete) A hyperbola.

Questions about hyperboles

What is hyperboles the plural of?
Hyperboles is the plural of hyperbole.

Words near hyperboles in the dictionary

  1. hyperbola
  2. hyperbolae
  3. hyperbolaeon
  4. hyperbolas
  5. hyperbole
  6. hyperboles
  7. hyperbolic
  8. hyperbolic angle
  9. hyperbolic angles
  10. hyperbolic color
  11. hyperbolic colors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hyperboles (page history and authors); hyperbole (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.

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