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Hyperbole vs Overkill - What's the difference?

hyperbole | overkill |

As nouns the difference between hyperbole and overkill

is that hyperbole is (uncountable) extreme exaggeration or overstatement; especially as a literary or rhetorical device while overkill is (literally) a destructive capacity that exceeds that needed to destroy an enemy; especially with nuclear weapons.

As a verb overkill is

to destroy something with more (nuclear) force than is required.

hyperbole

Noun

(en noun)
  • (uncountable) Extreme exaggeration or overstatement; especially as a literary or rhetorical device.
  • (uncountable) Deliberate exaggeration.
  • (countable) An instance or example of this technique.
  • (countable, obsolete) A hyperbola.
  • Quotations

    {{timeline, 1600s=1602, 1800s=1837 1841 1843, 1900s=1910, 2000s=2001}} * 1602 — i 3 *: ...and when he speaks
    'Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquar'd,
    Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd,
    Would seem hyperboles . * 1837 — *: The great staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole , a feature of grandeur and magnificence. * 1841 — , ch. 28 *: "Nay - nay - good Sumach," interrupted Deerslayer, whose love of truth was too indomitable to listen to such hyperbole with patience. * 1843 — *: The honourable gentleman forces us to hear a good deal of this detestable rhetoric; and then he asks why, if the secretaries of the Nizam and the King of Oude use all these tropes and hyperboles , Lord Ellenborough should not indulge in the same sort of eloquence? * c.1910 — *: Of course the hymn has come to us from somewhere else, but I do not know from where; and the average native of our village firmly believes that it is indigenous to our own soil—which it can not be, unless it deals in hyperbole , for the nearest approach to a river in our neighborhood is the village pond. * 2001 - Tom Bentley, Daniel Stedman Jones, The Moral Universe *: The perennial problem, especially for the BBC, has been to reconcile the hyperbole -driven agenda of newspapers with the requirement of balance, which is crucial to the public service remit.

    Synonyms

    * overstatement * exaggeration

    Antonyms

    * meiosis * understatement

    Derived terms

    * hyperbolic

    See also

    * adynaton ----

    overkill

    English

    Noun

    (-)
  • (literally) A destructive capacity that exceeds that needed to destroy an enemy; especially with nuclear weapons.
  • (idiomatic) An unnecessary excess of whatever is needed to achieve a goal.
  • 24 hours of TV coverage of the US election verged on overkill .
    Should I give you yet more homework, or would that be overkill ?

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To destroy something with more (nuclear) force than is required.