embiggen
Meanings
verb
- To enlarge; to make or become bigger.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From em- + biggen or big + em- -en, possibly analogous to belittle. The morphology parallels that of enlarge (en- + large) or embolden (em- + bold + -en). The verb's first recorded use is in an 1884 edition of the British journal Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc. by C. A. Ward (see quotation below). The word’s current popularity follows its deployment as an intentionally ungainly form by television writer Dan Greaney for The Simpsons episode “Lisa the Iconoclast” in 1996.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Related words
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.