Hyperbole

Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis or effect, stated in terms nobody is expected to take literally, as in 'the form had been on his desk since the Bronze Age'.

The form had been on his desk since the Bronze Age. Nobody believes it, and nobody is meant to. The exaggeration communicates exasperation faster and more precisely than any accurate statement of the delay.

That is the hyperbole definition in practice: exaggeration so large it cannot be mistaken for fact. The word comes from the Greek for "throwing beyond", and it is pronounced hy-PER-buh-lee.

Examples of hyperbole

• I've told you a million times. Why it works: the number is nonsense, and the irritation is exact.
• Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? Macbeth, after the murder. Why it works: a whole ocean against one hand of blood measures his guilt, not the stain.
• Here once the embattled farmers stood, / And fired the shot heard round the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Why it works: no shot is heard round the world, but the consequences were.

Hyperbole is about the speaker

In fiction it is almost never about the fact. It is about the speaker. A character who exaggerates reveals what they find unbearable, and how much they expect to be indulged. Two narrators describing the same eight-month wait, one flatly and one hyperbolically, are two different people.

The Runner, a feature screenplay by Jeffrey Doka, the editor behind Final Boss Editing, uses it exactly this way. Rich has just pulled their plane out of a dive forty feet above the desert.

Rich yells this time. James's face is white.

JAMES

Poor Amy. Do that again and I'll need to change my pants.

Why it works: the action line tells us James is terrified; the exaggeration tells us he will joke rather than admit it. The fear and the cover for it arrive together.

Hyperbole, litotes and irony

Its opposite is litotes, which understates instead, and the two often live in the same voice: extravagance about small things and dryness about large ones is a recognisable comic register. Hyperbole also shades into irony whenever the gap between the claim and the truth is so wide that the gap itself is the message.

The failure mode: inflation

Hyperbole works by contrast with a plain surrounding register. Prose in which everything is the worst, the loudest, the most appalling has nowhere left to go when something genuinely large happens. Keep the baseline flat and the exaggeration will do its work. That is the same economy that governs purple prose.

Frequently asked questions

What does hyperbole mean?

Hyperbole means exaggeration on purpose: a claim so far beyond the truth that nobody takes it literally, such as 'I've told you a million times'. The word comes from the Greek for 'throwing beyond' and is pronounced hy-PER-buh-lee.

What is an example of hyperbole?

Everyday examples include 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse' and 'this bag weighs a ton'. In literature, Macbeth asks whether all the ocean could wash the blood from his hand, which is exaggeration used to show guilt.

Is hyperbole the same as lying?

No. A lie hopes to be believed. Hyperbole only works because both sides know it is not true, so the listener reads the size of the feeling rather than the size of the claim.