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Exaggerate vs Enhance - What's the difference?

exaggerate | enhance |

As verbs the difference between exaggerate and enhance

is that exaggerate is to overstate, to describe more than is fact while enhance is (obsolete) to lift, raise up.

exaggerate

English

Verb

(exaggerat)
  • To overstate, to describe more than is fact.
  • I've told you a billion times not to exaggerate !
    He said he'd slept with hundreds of girls, but I know he's exaggerating . The real number is about ten.

    Synonyms

    * overexaggerate * overstate

    Antonyms

    * (overstate) downplay, understate

    Derived terms

    * exaggeratedly * exaggeratingly * exaggerative * exaggeratively * exaggerativeness * exaggerator * exaggeratory

    enhance

    English

    Alternative forms

    * inhance * enhaunce * inhaunce

    Verb

    (enhanc)
  • (obsolete) To lift, raise up.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.i:
  • nought aghast, his mightie hand enhaunst : / The stroke down from her head vnto her shoulder glaunst.
    (Wyclif Bible)
  • To augment or make something greater.
  • * Southey
  • The reputation of ferocity enhanced the value of their services, in making them feared as well as hated.
  • * 2000 , Mordecai Roshwald, Liberty: Its Meaning and Scope , page 155
  • A hereditary monarch relies on pomp and ceremony, which enhance the respect for the institution
  • To improve something by adding features.
  • * 1986 , Maggie Righetti, Knitting in Plain English , page 192
  • A pom-pom to top off a stocking cap, a fringe to feather the edge of a shawl, tassels to define the points of an afghan, these are just a few of the delightful little goodies that enhance handknit things.
  • To be raised up; to grow larger.
  • A debt enhances rapidly by compound interest.

    Synonyms

    * See also