aggrandize
Americanverb (used with object)
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aggrandizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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aggrandized,
past participle, past
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aggrandizing
present participle
verb
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to increase the power, wealth, prestige, scope, etc, of
-
to cause (something) to seem greater; magnify; exaggerate
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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aggrandizesimple
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aggrandizessimple
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have aggrandizedperfect
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has aggrandizedperfect
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am aggrandizingprogressive
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are aggrandizingprogressive
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is aggrandizingprogressive
-
have been aggrandizingperfect progressive
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has been aggrandizingperfect progressive
Past
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aggrandizedsimple
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had aggrandizedperfect
-
was aggrandizingprogressive
-
were aggrandizingprogressive
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had been aggrandizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of aggrandize
1625–35; < French aggrandiss- (long stem of aggrandir to magnify), equivalent to ag- ag- + grand ( see grand) + -iss -ish 2, irregular equated with -ize ( def. )
Explanation
If you are a window washer, but you refer to yourself as a "vista enhancement specialist," then you are aggrandizing your job title — that is, making it sound greater than it is. The verb aggrandize not only means "to make appear greater"; it can also be used to mean simply "to make greater." If you buy an estate and sink millions of dollars into its improvement, then you are actually aggrandizing the estate. If you are making yourself seem greater, then people may say you are "self-aggrandizing."
Vocabulary lists containing aggrandize
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Experience shows that it is not wise to trust human cupidity where it has the opportunity to aggrandize itself at the expense of others,” they wrote.
From Barron's ● May 2, 2026
Yet there are none of the trappings of schools that aggrandize the M.B.A. aspirant as a master of the universe in waiting: grand atriums, leather-chaired lounges, chandelier-festooned ceilings.
From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2023
“There was never looking for credit, never looking to aggrandize himself,” Rendell told AP.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 21, 2022
It feels odd to talk about, because I don’t want to aggrandize myself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2019
If, however, it is ever honest for a city to aggrandize to itself all the prosperity of its suburban neighbors, it is eminently so with Louisville.
From The History of Louisville, from the Earliest Settlement till the Year 1852 by Ben Casseday
Trinidad Gonzales, a history professor at South Texas College, said the pamphlet aggrandizes Manifest Destiny, the belief that American settlers had the God-given right to expand across North America.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2022
An army of female dancers aggrandizes her divadom, and, as one of her lead choreographers told the Times, “everything,” everything, “is choreographed to a T.”
From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2021
The Amazon Prime series, which returns Friday, is a sharp, entertaining, eviscerating satire of superhero franchises and the culture that aggrandizes them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2020
It seems like, among other things a miserable mindset, one that aggrandizes your ego but withers your soul.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 19, 2019
This ubiquitous possibility of the Mark's occurring—the ignorance of the archer where his gifted arrow will strike—ennobles, aggrandizes his person and his work.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845 by Various
He did everything to feel aggrandized and powerful.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2020
These slacker gestures, aggrandized with an eye-rolling statement from the artist that the “artworks are finished when they have been returned,” undercut the ambition of the other three participants.
From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2019
“He is not standing stoically or posed ‘heroically’ on a pedestal or being aggrandized in bronze,” Weitzman said.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2018
And would the predictable reaction have been helpful, or only further aggrandized terrorism and divided society?
From US News ● Oct. 26, 2016
The fathers whose sons had played merited a more aggrandized status in the fraternity of older men who queued along the passageway.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
It seems aggrandizing and selfish to dwell on it when there are many people who lost everything in the course of that single day.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 9, 2022
In 2019 alone, “red” museums and memorials, aggrandizing Communist Party history, drew 1.4 billion visits, making them among the most popular destinations in the world.
From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2022
Fatherhood for me rests somewhere between selfless sacrifice and aggrandizing self-preservation.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 14, 2021
Most of that was devoted to aggrandizing and touting his relationship with Clyburn.
From Slate ● Feb. 27, 2020
La Salle, on his return to Canada, actively set about aggrandizing his new possession.
From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 by John Rudd
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
