Definition of AGGRANDIZE

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Aggrandize has enhanced the English vocabulary since the early 17th century. English speakers adapted "agrandiss-," the stem of the French verb agrandir, to form "aggrandize," and later used the French form agrandissement as the basis of the noun "aggrandizement." (The root of "agrandiss-" is Latin; it comes from grandis, meaning "great.") Nowadays, both noun and verb are regularly paired (somewhat disparagingly) with the prefix self- to refer to individuals bent on glorifying themselves, as in the following sentence by Barbara Buchholz which appeared in the Chicago Tribune in 1995: "Celebrity authors eager to reveal all, self-aggrandize and wear their royalties in expensive attire. . . ."

Examples of aggrandize in a Sentence

a movie that aggrandizes the bad guys and makes the cops look like dopes a generous grant, enabling the library to significantly aggrandize its collection of books on tape

Recent Examples on the Web Soon Parveen discovers that Crane’s book is a self-aggrandizing fabric of lies. — Katherine A. Powers, Washington Post, "The best new audiobooks for your Thanksgiving drive," 19 Nov. 2019 The second outing with self-aggrandizing stalker (and murderer) Joe is just as addictive as the first, if a little repetitive. — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, "The 25 best TV shows of 2019, from 'Fleabag' to 'Stranger Things'," 4 Dec. 2019 What had happened to this diminutive scholar from Baghdad, in Iraq's dusty plains and dense alleyways, to leave him capable of such a self-aggrandizing pronouncement and the sickening violence that went with it? — Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, "How ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became a feared preacher of hate," 27 Oct. 2019 Eventually, in Beran’s aggrandizing telling, 4chan’s crescendo of furious nihilism delivers President Trump to America. — Emma Grey Ellis, WIRED, "WIRED Book of the Month: It Came From Something Awful," 31 July 2019 There’s Eastern European folk music, soft shoe numbers, self-aggrandizing hip-hop, guitar rock and more. — Dominic P. Papatola, Twin Cities, "Theater review: ‘Ride the Cyclone’ is loopy, thoughtful, thoroughly enjoyable," 15 Sep. 2019 Da story behind Da Bears — and how the sausage-eating, Mike Ditka-obsessed, Chicago-aggrandizing Super Fans are still part of Chicago sports today. — Colleen Kane, chicagotribune.com, "Packers 10, Bears 3: Defense shines but offense fizzles in a season-opening setback," 5 Sep. 2019 Unfortunately, this is in an environment of strident self-aggrandizing self-righteousness. — Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, "Letter: Violence rooted in cultural bipolar insanity," 7 Aug. 2019 The more self-aggrandizing inmates, the ones who imagined themselves as the inspiration for a big-budget thriller, saw talking to Cox as an opportunity to get their story out there. — Rachel Monroe, The Atlantic, "The True-Crime Writer in Cellblock B4," 16 July 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'aggrandize.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.