embiggen

动词 v.
/ɪmˈbɪɡən/    /ɛmˈbɪɡən/

英文释义

动词 v.
  1. To enlarge; to make or become bigger. ergative,humorous,nonstandard,usually
    — Are there not, however, barbarous verbs in all languages? ἀλλ’ ἐμεγάλυνεν αυτοὺς ὁ λαός, but the people magnified them, to make great or embiggen, if we may invent an English parallel as ugly. After all, use is nearly everything.

词形变化

embiggens present,singular,third-person embiggening participle,present embiggened participle,past embiggened past

词源

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.
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